Longford to Irvinestown - 71 miles

Today started with a bang! Dave and Nic drove us back down to Edgeworthstown to begin today's journey, where we began our morning ritual of filling up bottles with energy drinks, stocking up the shortbread box, etc. Then Garfy pumped his tyre up, only for it to explode 5 minutes later. It transpires that there are no bike shops in Edgeworthstown, so a typically friendly local pointed us in the direction of nearby Longford, where another typically friendly fellow put a new tyre on for Garfy and helped with directions up towards Omagh. Photo above of Garfy's new wheels.
A sunny day! Both myself and Garfy agreed that today's scenery was the best yet, but to be fair to the rest of Ireland, we haven't seen any of that in sunshine at all. Out of Co. Longford into Leitrim, Cavan, then across what was once the Northern Irish border into Fermanagh and Eniskillen, which is a stunningly beautiful place. Our spirits were certainly lifted by the weather all day, despite poor little insomniac goblin boy only getting about an hour's sleep last night and us going 6 miles out of our way. We were only chased by two dogs today, one of which, a sheepdog, wins the award for persistance by keeping up for 1/4 mile. Couldn't unclip my shoe whilst peddling like mental quickly enough to injure him though, sadly. Met up with our wonderful support team in Irvinestown where they'd not only already arranged for our bikes to be locked up round the back, but racked up a couple of black ones on the bar too. Nice bite to eat there then back to a big luxury B&B right in the sticks outside Omagh. A good day overall, despite the late start. Last day tomorrow - a mere 78 miles or so up to Malin Head.

Song of the day - "Fire and Rain" - James Taylor
Naturewatch:

2 x crows (dead)
1 x stoat (dead)
1 x blackbird (dead)

Over and out, so I am.

Support Team Update no.2

Day 2 consisted of a lot of time in the car as we set off from Millstreet just before midday. We went in search of the narrow guage railway at Tralee only to find it had become extinct due to the collapse of Celtic Tiger funding – sadly a common story. As time was against us we motored on to Nenagh where we located the B&B and then the evening’s entertainment at Andy’s Bar; Katine had an opinion on everything!
Day 3: Once the boys had their tyres pumped and bottles filled we headed to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast. It mizzled and drizzled all day, but we managed to get a dry-ish window to take in the views. OMG they are stunning/dangerous/beautiful/moody and we saw Puffins for the first time – Woohoo!! It is a sanctuary for sea birds including Kittywakes, Guillemots and greater black-backed Gulls, and they collectively sounded like a distant football crowd! Then it rained, so we started our long journey through the purple Burren mountains to meet Rob n Garfy at Granard. Alan didn’t like the new motorways and spent a long time “recalculating”.
Sean poured a lovely pint of the black stuff at his Great-Grandfather’s shop-come-pub the John Donohoe – a very welcome tonic for day 3’s battle against the wind. It was then a case of food and then bed for all of us; bring on the sunshine...!!

BMW Dent Watch = two clear days with no damage! Fingers crossed......

Forgot to mention the Mad Mountain Axe-Man of Granard wobbling into the John Donohoe - is it a Hurling stick, or an Axe wrapped in a paper bag...um...and why are the Garda sat in a car on the corner of the street..."ah! he's harmless enough so he is! comes to town for the day to fill up on ale! one of his brothers will bring him home alright...". Thanks for the reassurance Sean!

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).

Day 2. Millstreet County Cork to Nenagh County Tipperary. 83 miles

A long day today! Not much sleep due to Pricey thrashing around in the bed next to me - now there's a statement open to interpretation!. After a full Irish courtesy of Noreen, our hostess with the mostess, we hit the road around 9:45. I programmed the sat nav on the phone to take us the shortest way - first mistake of the day! The short cut turned out to be a hike through the Mullaghareirk mountains. Lots of short, steep ups and downs that sapped the legs for around 20 miles. Finally cleared them and headed north to Limerick, where the problems really started. The main issue was that both our map and the sat nav took us up the N7 out of Limerick. The N7 became the M7 two weeks ago (so we later learned). We simply couldn't find a way out, mainly due to the fact that the county council hadn't bothered to change the signs to reflect the new road. Eventually, we stumbled across the right road and headed on to Nenagh, our stop for the night. We reached it around 6:45, having lost about an hour getting out of Limerick. Dave and Nicky were already in the pub waiting to greet us with a pint, and we soon got to know Cathrine the chef, who cooked us up a storm and went on to entertain us with the brand of wit only found in the Emerald Isle.

Roadside clothing count
3 x single gloves
1 x single shoe
1 x pair of trousers (yes, really)

Nature watch
5 x crows (dead)
1 x magpie (dead)
1 x blackbird (dead)
1 x badger (dead)

Song of the day - "Zorbing"

Day 1. Mizen Head to Millstreet. 75 miles

So here we are in Millstreet, County Cork after a pretty good couple of days. The run to Swansea yesterday was good. Dave and Nicola, who are touring Ireland by car and carrying all our stuff, picked us up around 3 and we arrived 2 hours before the ferry was due to leave. Fortunately they let us straight on, so we thought it only polite to find the bar and start things off as we mean to go on. A quick pop up to the poop to see the sights and a seal swam past the boat. Rob told me he thought that it was a dog out of it's depth; a bit like most of his ex-girlfriends really.

I managed to get a pretty good night's kip in my cabin - unlike Pricey who spent most of the night sweating under his duvet; a bit like most of his ex-girlfriends really. We jumped off the ferry at 7 (by a strange quirk of coincidence, "Road to Nowhere" was playing on the radio) and hit the road from Cork to Mizen hungry, as we didn't want to spend £9 on breakfast on the ferry. Unfortunately, it's Bank Holiday Monday over here, so pretty much everything, including all the cafes, was shut. The weather was pretty much as expected; crap. We stopped at a Spar in Skibbereen that actually sold bacon baguettes and the rain really started in earnest. Morale was low, but as we drove further south, the rain started to ease. When we arrived in Mizen it had actually stopped and the sky looked a bit brighter. With hope in our hearts and energy drinks in our bottles, we struck out to rapturous applause from the local wild fowl.

I was told by a local before we left that the roads in Ireland were not the smoothest. This proved to be completely accurate, and soon we were bouncing up and down on the tracks they call R roads over here (stands for rural apparently). The scenery here is gorgeous - mountains, loughs and everything is just a deeper shade of green. We breezed through the first 35 miles, passing through pretty villages and fantastic views. We stopped for lunch in a small garage, straight out of 1950's England. We walked in and there was a cold counter full of meats and salad. Rob asked if we could get some of it in to a baguette. The elderly lady attendant very kindly and patiently explained that they didn't do that sort of thing on a bank holiday - could we come back tomorrow when this would be absolutely no problem at all? Fortunately, there were some sandwiches already made up so we tucked in to them. She then asked us where we'd come from. When Rob told her Mizen, and that we were heading for Millstreet, she just stared at him like he was from another planet; a bit like most of his ex-girlfriends really.

We carried on to Macroom and after a quick break, headed up in to the mountains towards Millstreet. For the first time during the day, the rain came down heavily, giving us a wet end to the day. The surprise of the day was that it was pretty flat going. Pricey went well, with me having to work hard at times to keep pace on my slower, heavier bike. I'm proud of the boy!

Got to Millstreet and on to the Bulmers and Guinness. Checked in to our B&B for the night, greeted by our convivial and talkative hostess Noreen and her "tree" year old niece with some un-pronounecable Irish name.

Song of the day - Mr Tambourine Man

Nature watch

2 x crows - dead
2 x foxes - dead
1 x rabbit - dead
1 x stoat - alive
1 x hedgehog - dead
1 x otter - dead
1 x pair of Pricey's socks - wet and dead.

Swansea ferry here we come

Today's the day. We leave this afternoon to get tonight's Swansea to Cork ferry, then start the bike ride tomorrow morning.
Some close family friends, Pat & Pete Lynes, held a fundraising event at their house yesterday morning in Mum's memory for the MND Association. They sold plants, books, cakes, coffee, etc and managed to reach a total of £440. What an amazing gesture. This has now been added to our donation page and I'm delighted to say that our total is now £1,596 (106% of our target!)
A huge thanks to Pat & Pete and to all of the rest of you.
I suppose we'd better spend five days cycling through the Irish rain to earn it now!