Nenagh, Co. Tipperary to Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford - 74 miles

74 miles of rain, 13mph headwind, two punctures, four counties.

Toughest day yet, definitely. We started out from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, by retrieving our bikes from the pub (where the staff had very kindly offered to lock them up for us last night). It rained pretty well constantly all day, and coupled with the wind in our faces, this almost made us a little bit depressed.
However, after a nice lunch in Ferbane, Co. Offaly, and after having mended Garfy’s 2nd puncture, (luckily, the local toy shop was open to sell us an inner tube for his Raleigh Budgie) we took a detour round Athlone which took us through some very very rural hilly roads, quite literally through the middle of nowhere. In this particular part of Co. Westmeath it seems that people keep dogs and keep them outside without locking them in. This results in them chasing tired English cyclists as far as they can down the road, barking like mad. If this happens again tomorrow I’m going to un-clip my right foot and hoof them straight in the jaw, the dog bastards. It didn’t rain for the dog chasing part of the day though, so that was nice.
More and more cycling, more and more wind and rain and we hobbled into Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford. Guinness and Lasagne in Granard, then to the nearby guesthouse, set in 22 acres and like a luxury version of the priest house in “Father Ted”.
Word of the day – “Bollocks” (used as an insulting noun, e.g, “get out of my way you short Welsh bollocks”).
Song of the day – “The Road” – Frank Turner
Naturewatch:
3 x crows (dead)
1 x badger (dead)
1 x hedgehog (dead)
1 x blackbird (dead)
17 dogs of various breeds (wish they were dead)

Northern Ireland tomorrow! Thank you and goonight from Craggy Island.

Support Team update...

We were sooo pleased the boys had a good first leg; after the drive from the ferry to Mizen was not the most inspiring! We waved them off at around 10.45. We drove a total of 225 miles on day one taking in the views of the Beara Peninsula and Moll’s Gap before meeting up at Millstreet at 5.30pm. Rob emptied his first barrel of Guinness at the Wallis Arms (he obviously has a lot of fluid to replace...) before we checked into Noreen’s B&B an hour later. Smelling a little fresher, we headed back to the pub - but just missed the last orders for food at the Wallis; no worries as it’s totally ok to buy a pizza from Claudio’s across the road and eat it in the bar....try that in the Moon in the Square!
RTE2fm tunes of the day included Squeeze (Up the Junction) and ELO (Mr Blue Sky) LOL!
BMW dent watch: front passenger door (Nic and low dry-stone wall); nearside front lower wishbone (Dave and deep drain gulley in Eyeries).