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Spokes, Blokes and Blarney

Well, it's been great fun, we've laughed and we've cried but my Cycling Ireland diary has come to an end and now my mission is to write a book about the trip.
I figure it can't be that hard, all I need to do is come up with about 100,000 words and find a gullible publisher. Should have it polished off over the weekend.
The working title is Spokes, Blokes and Blarney. If you can think of a better one, there's a box of chocolates in it for you.

Harlots and Jezebels in Cork

Tam's Cycling Adventure... the Youghal to Cork leg, Aug 2, 2005

Lots and lots has happened since my last posting about 3 weeks ago and I'll try and fill in the gaps at some point but now I'm in Cork, its a fabulous city not to mention the European capital of culture 2005 no less which means they've opened a few more art galleries and everybody wears sunglasses while drinking lattes at pavement tables of cafe/bars with French names, surrounded by a wall of shopping bags.
Today I did a bus tour which took us around all the historic sites, like the old gaol, which is very good. They've got life size models of prisoners based on real prisoners from the 19th and 20th centuries and a running commentary describing life then and the kind of punishment you could get. In a word, grim. One little nine year old boy got five years for stealing two brass bullcocks, whatever a bullcock is, must look it up. He was also whipped twice a week for three weeks but this was because he was a repeat offender, by the age of nine he already had seven convictions for theft. Another poor woman got six months for taking tobacco and drinking spirits. If that still applied, everyone I know would be doing a life sentence.
After the tour, I wandered off to look at the butter museum. I know, who'd have thought you could make a museum about butter? But it was actually very interesting. Traditional butter making was a lengthy and arduous task, and in Ireland it could all be ruined if those pesky fairies made mischief. Which they did quite often apparently. When the butter wouldn't 'break' during churning, it was blamed on evil fairies.
Must say though, after two months of this travelling alone business, I am mighty, mighty fed up with sleeping in cramped dorm rooms full of women who all come in at various times of the night. If you go to bed at, say, 10.30pm, you will be woken up every hour for the next four hours and kept awake for at least 30 minutes while these gallivanting harlots get ready for bed (cue peeing noises, brushing teeth noises) and discussing at length in theatrical whispers -- so as not to disturb their fellow dorm mates -- what time they need to get up in the morning.
'Mary, will I set the alarm for 8am?'
'Jesus Holy Mother of God, are you mad? That's six hours from now, no, set it for 10am.'
'But Mary, we have to check out at 10am and the free breakfast starts at 8am, we'll save money if we get to the free breakfast...'
'Saints preserve us, it'll only be a bit of shite white bread for toasting with some poxy butter.'
'No Mary, I heard there was going to be cornflakes with free milk.'
[heavy - but whispered - sigh from Mary] 'Oh alright, set it for 9am, that way we can just get dressed and go.'
'Sure, I'll set it for 8.45am then, that way we can have a 15 minute lie in... what do you think the weather will be like tomorrow?...'
By this time I have eaten through my pillow and half way into my mattress in an effort to stop myself leaping from the bunk and shrieking, 'will you just shut the fuck up you gibbering jezebels!' then grabbing the alarm clock out of their hands and chucking it through the window.
I didn't quite manage to retain my cool demeanour the other night in Dungarven. These two Irish girls who - to be fair - were in bed way before me but they had a friend, some tarty blonde who turned up at 3am drunk as a lord and who kept phoning the other two, in turns, from just up the hallway because she couldn't find the room. So I was woken by their phones playing some tinny song from the top twenty countdown then, again with the theatrical whispers, one of the girls started giving her directions over the phone, even though we could all hear this girl staggering about just up the hall. 'Keep walking, past reception, yes, that's right, no the other way, turn around, that's it, there's an 'o' on the door. An 'o'! Yes, on the door, an 'o' on the door...'
finally the drunk genius stumbles in and switches the light on -- which is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable in hostelling circles, up there with stealing someone's food from the fridge even though it's been clearly labelled -- so i leap up and scream 'oh for fucks sake!' then stomp into the ensuite bathroom and slam the door before weeing as loudly and irritatingly as I could (passive aggressive, moi?). Meanwhile the first two girls are acting like I bit them and hissing at their friend to 'get in and shut up'. I felt a bit bad in the morning, after all we've all stumbled home drunk at some stage.
I also had to get my first proper bike repair done in Cork, I had to have a spoke replaced. The man who did it was not very happy about it when he realised I had 'fancy schmancy' disc brakes and not the regular kind. He told me not to bring my bike back to him. I told him there was no fear of that when he charged me fifteen euro just to fix a bloody spoke. And he complained about how dirty my bike was. I tell you, when a bike mechanic complains about getting his hands dirty something is very wrong with the world. xx

Wicklow Mountains

Tam's Cycling Adventure Around Ireland, Newcastle, July 21

Just arrived in town, it's a stinking hot day, appropriate for a beachside town like Newcastle. Built beneath some towering hills, the area is officially An Area of Outstanding Beauty, so named by some European Commission which apparently decides such things. It's crammed with holidaymakers, all eating ice-creams and getting more sun on their already burnt limbs. The Irish don't seem to have quite gotten the hang of sunscreen, sunglasses and a hat yet. Give them a few more years of global warming though. Over here, 'Slip, Slop, Slap' is what happens in the naughty wee hours down in the alley behind the local pub.
As I rode into town, a banner across the road declared that I was in luck, I had arrived during the Newcastle Herring Gutters Festival. 'Cripes' I thought, 'that's bloody lucky, I'd have hated to have missed the festival that celebrates ripping the intestines out of small fish. Clearly these people don't need too much of an excuse to get on the grog.
'What shall we drink to Paddy?'
'Wey, what's left Declan? We've celebrated the Left-handed Jesuit Embroiderers Association, We've drunk to the Bring Back Take That action group, so that leaves the herring gutters from Newcastle.'
'Top idea Paddy, I'll drink to that. And lets have a festival for them too!'
'Brilliant!'
'Brilliant!'
It turned out to be a rather non-eventful evening in Newcastle though. I spent eleven pounds (!!), ie, a fecking fortune on a bit of salmon, some mashed spuds and carrots, and a gin and tonic. Having exhausted my funds, I traipsed back to Newcastle Youth Hostel - my home for the night - and watched telly (yay, telly!). It was The Bill and was well ahead of the episodes I last saw in Australia. In the dorm room that night there was just me and one other, very quiet, blonde German woman. She was very nice and offered me some of her grapes but we hardly spoke a word to each other. It was companiable silence though, one of those silences where we both understood that we bore each other no ill will but tonight neither of us felt like swapping 'so, what are you doing in Ireland?' stories. In fact I think she may have been crying on the phone. The next morning I left because the hostel was fully booked that night and they told me I had to leave. Kicked out of a Youth Hostel, I ask you.

Friday July 22, Newcastle to Carlingford
I caned it today on the bike. I was feeling powerful and energetic so I really pushed myself. It felt good to be breathing heavily and to feel the sweat dripping down my face, arms and back. Not everyone's idea of a good time I realise but things have been quiet in my life of late.
At one point a male cyclist on a racing bike joined me for about seven kilometres. He was on a ride for fun and was meeting a friend in Kileel, the town we were pedalling towards at an impressive pace. We gave the traffic a headache for a while though because it's hard for cars to overtake one bike on a hill bend but it's almost impossible to pass two bikes without risking a head on collision. While I felt a bit guilty about holding up the drivers and would have normally pulled over to the side, my new friend was shamelessly carefree about it, almost aggressive in his attitude to his motorised road sharers. Maybe it's a testosterone thing but it seems slightly foolhardy to essentially be saying, 'come and 'av a go if ye think ye're 'ard enough' when you're balancing on a few sticks of aluminium, protected by nothing but neon blue Lycra, while your opponent is surrounded by a tonne or so of steel.
I stopped in the pretty towns of Warrenpoint and Newry for coffee and snacks before finally arriving at the mediaeval town of Carlingford where I planned to stop for the night.
Carlingford is a beautiful town with ancient stone walls and crumbling castle ruins shoulder to shoulder with pretty pubs and shops.
I got a dorm bed at the Carlingford Adventure Centre but had to pay 24 euro for a four-bed dorm with ensuite, a tad pricey but it turned out I had the whole room to myself - thank God - because it was one of those sporty, healthy adventure centres and there were about 300 French and English schoolchildren tearing around the place on some kind of school excursion where they have to do things like abseilling and hillwalking. It's all so Enid Blyton. Back in my day school excursions involved an afternoon in the local museum.

Wicklow mountains, south of Dublin.
It's a stunning area but a bit tough to climb up those mountains at times, still, it's worth it at the top -- miles and miles of mountains as far as the eye can see. Last night I did about ten hours on the bike and by the end of that I was desperate to find my hostel, which was in the middle of nowhere and up some killer hills, I was swearing a lot by this stage -- almost gibbering and hysterical with rage at the roads for being too steep and the hostel for being too far out and the hostel manager for not answering his phone so I didn't even know if I could get a bed once I found the damn place -- then when I finally did find it, the manager - this rotund guy in his forties called Kevin - said, 'ah well, the bad news is we're completely full, you didn't book see...' Just as I was deciding whether to fall to the floor a gibbering, dribbling mess, or grab the nearest sharp object and kill him, he said, 'ah no, only joking, I've got a bed for ye...' at which point I told him three times in quick succession that he was the product of an unwed mother.

Kilkenny
I shared a dorm room last night in Kilkenny with seven other women (joy), when I first went to bed, three of them were there in their jammies, all aged about 23 and discussing the 'gross' girl the night before who had, like, snored all night, it was so, like, you know, disgusting! (yep, americans). Then they went on to discuss how Tom Cruise had so gone wierd lately, what with the scientology thing and how they so didn't believe that he and Katie Holmes were for real, it's like, 'ugh, she needs to get someone her own age, I mean he's like, 40!!' They also thought Britney had gone skanky but Cristina Aguilera annoyed them more because she always looked like a tart, although admittedly she does have a great voice, but gawd, she so knows it. I interrupted at that point to mention that there was a good chance, according to those who had shared rooms and beds with me in the past, that I would snore like a choking elephant so I was apologising in advance and would not hold it against them if they took it upon themselves to throw something at my head. It turned out that my snoring was the least of their worries as the pub outside seemed to be letting eejits in and out till the wee hours, all of whom seemed compelled to yodel or cry like banshees.This morning I leapt out of bed and out the door so that the girls could talk about my awful snoring behind my back and went for a walking tour of Kilkenny.

hen's night hell

(Tam's cycling adventure... saturday night in Letterkenny, July 10th)

They take their stag and hen's dos very seriously here in County Donegal, particularly so here in the town of Letterkenny if my investigations on Saturday night are anything to go by.
Keen to see how the locals let their hair down on a weekend, myself and an American girl from my hostel called Sarah decided to hit town and observe the mating game at full tilt.
It was rather alarming. The first pub we went into, called Sister Sara's, was packed with revellers and pumping with loud, throbbing pop music. There was also about 20 women, wearing identical Playboy bunny's ears and all manner of revealing clothing, who were enthusiastically necking colourful drinks and fussing over a women wearing a wedding veil; the lucky hen, we surmised.
We left to try and find a quieter venue, ie, one with fewer decibels than a concorde breaking the speed of sound -- and within the space of about three minutes we came across two more large groups of scantily clad women, all a whooping an' a hollering, teetering up the street on heels that make podiatrists rich, in order to give their matrimonally-doomed mate a fitting send off from single life. Like a flock of colourful, exotic birds, they were dressed to kill with boobs, thigh, and stomach all on offer for the lads like a flesh buffet.
But it wasn't just the girls who were sending off a soon-to-be-wed mate. After three tries, Sarah and I found a pub that wasn't quite packed to the rafters, we ordered ourselves a drink (me white wine, Sarah beer) and noticed that the place was full of men, all clearly wearing their good shirts and having had recent haircuts. 'Stag party' I said to Sarah as we waited for the barman to bring our drinks over, and sure enough not long after we'd found a seat we were soon joined by John, a paralytically drunk man who fell onto the bench next to me, put his arm around my shoulder, and slurred something incomprehensible. About ten minutes later we'd managed to figure out his name, that he was on a stag night which started many hours earlier, and that something or other was 'a lorra bollocks' while everybody in the vicinity was a 'blurry wanker'. John was one of the drunkest men I've ever met in my life who managed to still be conscious, the fact that he wasn't passed out in an alley, lying in a puddle of his own urine, was nothing less than miraculous. I'd also wager that that's how he ended his evening but Sarah and I weren't hanging around to find out. Because, here's the thing see, news flash, men that drunk are just bloody dull... unless you're equally as slaughered in which case they seem charming and enticing and you cry for weeks when they don't call after that 'meaningful' grope and tug you shared in the loos which was the first time you'd ever done that kind of thing, honest.
So we made our escape, this involved me gasping, 'oh my god, look over there!' and pointing to the corner of the ceiling (an oldie but a goodie), John turned his gaze in the direction of my finger, slurred something like, 'orrl lorra bolloshwank' while Sarah and I ran out the side exit. Chances are he's still on the bench staring up at the ceiling, going, 'whaaa, whadizzit?' While sitting in a puddle of his own urine obviously. love tam xx

Nappy Rash and Biker's Boink

(Tam's cycling adventure... Dunfanaghy to Letterkenny, 8th July...)

I left the Corgreggan Mill Hostel, Dunfanaghy, at 10.15am. It was raining so lightly that you could hardly call it rain, more like 'mist'. And I said to Miriam, the Swiss girl working at the hostel for a couple of weeks, that if it didn't get any heavier than this, it'd be great. It did though of course, an hour later I was battling through heavy, relentless, honest-to-goodness rain. It filled my shoes and ran off the end of my helmet in little waterfalls. But the worst bit was going downhill because, not only did I have even less control than normal on the wet slippery roads, but I couldn't see anything thanks to the stream of water sprayed straight into my face by my front tyre. After a couple of hours I was suffering from what's known as Biker's Boink -- this is simply a lack of energy and need to refuel. I was almost at my initial destination -- the entrance to Glenveagh Castle -- but I couldn't go any further so stopped off at a little pub called the Glenveagh Inn for a cup of sugary tea and some sympathy. As I got off my bike, water spilled over the sides of my shoes with each step, they were literally full of water and I was soaked through three layers of clothing, right down to my knickers. My padded bike pants felt like nappies what with all the water they'd soaked up so I now know how babies feel when their parents are lax in changing them. Parents out there, it's not pleasant. The trouble was I was still a long way off from my ultimate destination for the day and had to spend the next five hours in my soaking clothes, a sure-fire, textbook recipe no doubt for getting everything from pleurosy, to the plague, nappy rash and the worst case of athlete's foot in history.
I squelched into the pub and a pool of water began forming around me on the floor, luckily the pub lady was very understanding and the floor was lino. After a cup of tea and a chat with pub lady and a local farmer, I managed to finish the next five kilometres and -- heaven be praised -- the visitor's centre at the castle had a restaurant. Famished, I had beef stew with beans, carrots and mashed potatoes, then a scone (of course), two chocolate chip cookies and coffee.
Feeling much better but still uncomfortable due to nappy issues, I went off for a tour of the castle. The guide was a pretty redhead in her early twenties called Donna. The castle had been donated to the Irish government by the last owner, a man called McIlhenny who loved entertaining and kept a set of jockey scales by the entrance for weighing his guests when they arrived and left. 'Just his sense of humour' said Donna, apparently the kitchen staff could be said to be doing their job properly if the guests were heavier when they left. There was also a set of weighing scales in McIlhenny's bathroom upstairs and Donna said she suspected he was a 'little obsessed' with his weight. Given that he also never married and loved nothing more than hosting elaborate dinner parties, my immediate thought was 'gay!' (and before any of my gay friends reading this squeal 'stereotype you bitch!', my conclusion was confirmed later that day by the bar lady at another pub I dropped into).
There was also a strong hunting theme in the castle because over the years the various owners had enjoyed shooting the red deer that lived in the vicinity. They clearly murdered so many that they had more antlers than they knew what to do with and started making mirror frames, chandeliers and light fittings out of them. It was quite macabre. But worse was the pot plant holder made out of four deer feet. About as tasteful as those ashtrays made from gorilla hands.
There was an interesting curse put on the place early in its history too, when the first owner, John Adair I think but must check, evicted all the tenants living in the grounds, one old woman took great exception and put a curse on the castle that no owner would bear children. And so it was. They've been no children raised in the castle and that particular owner mysteriously vanished one day while on a fishing trip. Locals have three theories about what happened, Donna explained. The first, that a freak wave took his boat and he drowned. Second, that he was killed by locals from Inishbofen island after a dispute over a woman. Or that he secretly escaped to Europe and was later spotted in Paris.
No one knows said Donna but one thing she did know that didn't add up was that his wife didn't report him missing until two weeks later.
From the castle, I cycled to Letterkenny. By this time the weather had cleared up and myself and The Beast really enjoyed the ride. I got into town at about 6.30pm and met Adrianna the brassy, blonde hostel owner and her Persian cat Mai Tai who does tricks. Namely, when Adrianna says, 'rub your belly!' Mai Tai walks over, lays down, rolls over and allows her belly to be rubbed. She's not silly, that cat.
For my evening's entertainment, I splurged 18 euro (!!!) on a ticket to see an English singer called Kathryn Williams who was performing as part of the Earagail Arts Festival. Lovely. But for that price she'd have better been.

Campfires and Crolly Dolls

(Tam's cycling adventure... Arranmore to Dunfanaghy, 6th July)

I left Arranmore on the 10.30am ferry because I had a big day in the saddle to get up to Dunfanaghy. I rolled around the coast road from Burtonport, up through The Rosses, Gweedore and Croghaneely. It's mostly up and down but the hills aren't too big or steep so there's lots of those delicious downhill swoops.
The Rosses is village after village, all the Irish signs give it a real Gaeltacht feel. The Atlantic winds were giving me a few fierce headwinds as they blew from off the sea and up the hills. In every backyard, clothes hung out to dry were flapping madly, horizontal to the ground and clinging onto the line by their fingertips for fear of ending up in a tree 200 kilometres away. They make clothes tough in the west of Ireland. No doubt discussions on these clotheslines involve sneering at mollycoddled city clothes who just get a few gentle tumbles in a nice warm dryer. 'Luxury!' the hardy weather beaten farming shirts cry as they tighten their grip in the face of another coastal blast. 'They don't know they're born, those fancy-schmancy Dublin shirts...'
I whizzed through Crolly, the home of the famous porcelain Crolly Dolls as well as Leo's Tavern (Tabhairne Leo) which is run by the mum and dad of Clannad and Enya. I'm not sure if you can pop along for a pint of Guiness and expect to be served by Enya, as she hums a bit of Sail Away, though. I went along to find out but it was noon and they weren't open. Still, it's been a long time between chart hits for old Enya and we've all got to make a living so who knows.
From Crolly I took the coastal road north through more Gaeltacht towns, namely, Bunbeg (Bun Beag), Derrybeg (Doiri Beaga) and Brinlack (Bun na Leaca). It's worth mentioning at this point that place names in the west of Ireland can be very confusing, on your map they'll be in English but the road signs are often in Irish so for example when I was looking for the town of Gweedore when on my way to Dunlewy, little did I know that I was in it because the sign said Gaoth Dobhar. It's possible that tourists who started travelling in 1973 are still somewhere between Donegal and Dunfanaghy going round and round in circles, last heard uttering the words, 'but the map says it should be here...'
From Brinlack I cycled up into the hills and along the cliffs of the Bloody Foreland, so named because of the remarkable sunsets and not because people do themselves in by tossing themselves over the side. There's a bar/restaurant called Foreland Heights at the top and from the tables outside, the view back down the coast is spectacular, beautiful, dramatic, rugged. Unfortunately, the fact that they've got one of the best views in the country on their doorstep seems to have been overlooked by the good folk who own Foreland Heights and once you're inside, you can't see much of the view because of the small windows and thick crimson curtains. The vegetable soup was nice though.
I got to Corgreggan Mill Hostel a couple of hours later and spent my evening with Brian and Ian (two English blokes living in Scotland who were also on a cycling holiday); Geoff (southern californian), Carl and Helen from Limerick, and Vernon from Germany.
I was sharing the dorm room with Brian and Ian, excellent sorts who, like all good English lads, were packing in the beers and ciggies as fast as their hands and mouths could move, only stopping briefly to inhale the spaghetti and meatballs that Ian had whipped up -- quite the culinary whizz he was, the secret is lashings of butter apparently. I shamelessly scabbed a couple of cigarettes off Brian (Mum, not to smoke you understand, simply to put under the leg of a wonky table), drank too much wine and we ended the night in front of a peat fire, singing Radiohead's Karma Police which Carl did a more than adequate job of on the guitar. Brian was also a bit of a guitarist but a bit shyer about it than Carl. I once again rued the fact I didn't listen to my mum when I was 12 and applied myself more enthusiastically to the guitar lessons she wasted good money on. Mum, you were right, I did end up sitting round a campfire with a guitar wishing I could bang out a decent version of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'.

Arranmore Island and the French cutey

(Tam's cycling adventure... Dunlewly to Arranmore Island)

The weather is filthy. I rode the 25 or so kilometres from Errigal Hostel in Dunlewy to Burtonport to catch the 12 noon ferry over to Arranmore Island. It was a hilly ride around the coast in light rain and I made the ferry with just minutes to spare. Knowing I was cutting it fine, I just rode onto the nearest thing that looked like a ferry about to leave, figuring if it wasn't it was probably going somewhere nice anyway. Once on, I sked the person closest if it was going to Arranmore. It was and this person turned out to be Kathleen from Kilcar, County Donegal, whose son had been in New Zealand for his honeymoon recently and, luckily for me, loved the place. So, Kathleen decided that, simply because her son was so impressed with my homeland, she was going to take care of me, bless her. She gave me her card, told me I had a 'friend in Ireland' and should I ever need anything, or run into any bother, to give her a call. All this after a five minute conversation. If you're reading this Kathleen, thank you.
Kathleen and her husband were going to the island to visit their other son's wife, a woman who has a two-year-old son and is pregnant with twins. Please joing me in a moment's silence for this woman...

The wind and rain were still pelting when the ferry pulled into Arannmore Port so I felt I really had no choice but to retire to one of the island's six pubs. I'm now in the Arranmore Hotel (my third pub stop) and I've just had the seafood chowder with herbed soda bread (the herbs were an innovative twist on soda bread that I hadn't encountered before). The chowder was good, chock full of real identifiable seafood, although perhaps a tad salty, maybe because it was the head chef's day off and the owner was doing the cooking, I know this because I met the head chef in the second pub I stopped in this afternoon. He's from Dublin and moved to the island three weeks ago to take up the chef's job in the new hotel. And having a real chef around is the talk of the island.
I've now literally drunk in half the pubs on the island. In the first one I stopped into, minutes after disembarking from the ferry, the remnants of a hen's night that apparently rocked the island the night before were loudly cackling over the comings and goings of the previous night and testing the 'hair of the dog' theory with sambuca shots with lunch.
Sitting here, overlooking the ocean from the conservatory of the Hotel, I'm having fantasies of getting a job here for the high season and living on the island for a month or so. I decide that if someone offers me a job, I'll take it but this is highly unlikely as I haven't asked a single soul about employment.
Jobs and money are on my mind because I had an email from my mum last night who is stressing out on my behalf about my dwindling finances. She has a point unfortunately, my ostrich approach to money is going to have to stop. It's taking me a lot longer to ride around the country than I'd thought it would and I'm going through my funds as a frightening speed. Damned strong euro.
Anyway, I put the ugly subject of money out of my mind for a bit longer and spend the evening in the hostel talking to the one and only other person there, namely, the French Guy Who's Been There Since April which is how he was described to me by Mary the hostel owner, who signed me in then disappeared into the night and I never saw her again.
Despite talking to French Guy for hours well into the night, I never got his name so lets call him Sebastian. From Brittany, he was about a handsome twenty-something, with black wavy hair and intense eyes that latched onto you like lasers from beneath thick, arched eyebrows. As part of his studies, he was working for a few months in the island's council and environmental planning and management office on issues like how to bring more employment and industry to the island, how to get the young people to stay on the island and how to deal with infrastructure problems like the lack of utilities such as water, sewage and waste management. For example, as my bike ride round the island had revealed, the 600 islanders tend to use the bogs and isolated parts of the island as a big rubbish dump. Sebastian said about 200 cars had been dumped in the bogs. Environmental neglect is a recurring theme. Arranmore's main industry used to be fishing but, quite simply, the area has been overfished and there's none left.
On a personal front, Sebastian is a big fan of Donegal and was shocked to hear that I hadn't gone to the Slieve Mountains while in Glencolmcille (yes, it's shocking I know but I couldn't face more cycling uphill that day) or that I hadn't climbed Errigal while in Dunlewy (again, yes, it's unforgiveable but apparently you virtually need gumboots for the first half because it's so swampy and I didn't want to wreck my only pair of shoes)... but I threw Croagh Patrick back at him, which I had climbed and he hadn't, and which is 20 metres higher than Errigal. Yeah! I see your Errigal and raise you one Croagh Patrick!

Rat's Tail and Fat Mullet

(Tam's cycling adventure - a day in Dungloe)

A bloody waste of a day. I'd decided to stay an extra night in Dunlewy at Errigal Hostel so I could ride back to Dungloe and get the squeaks on my bike -- the Mighty White Steed -- fixed. Nothing major, just some oil in all the right places. So I backtracked -- BACK-bloody-TRACKED!! -- 20kms to Dungloe to take the Mighty Beast to the 'bike mechanic' there, who is apparently the only one for 200kms. Never trust a man with no teeth and a rat's tail hairdo, who works out of a shed in his backyard and claims to fix everything from mowers to motorcycles. He doesn't. A classic Jack of All Trades, Master of None. If I'd said my biological clock was giving me a bit of trouble, he'd have said, 'leave it with me, I'll see what I can do'.
First off, I got his colleague, a fat man with a mullet and a gravity-defying cigarette stuck to his lower lip. After admitting he didn't know what disc brakes were, he deferred my squeak problem to his workmate, 'he knows bikes' he assured me. So Rat's Tail guy kicks my tyres a couple of times, strokes his chin and goes for a test ride. Four minutes later he's back saying he couldn't hear the squeaks I was talking about but he had 'fixed' my gears. I should point out that my gears had been working perfectly after I'd paid a proper bike mechanic to minutely adjust them to my requirements.
Slightly annoyed, I said, 'look, don't worry about whether you can hear the squeaks or not, please just put oil in all the places that usually need oiling...' but he just walked off. I presumed he would be coming back but after about ten minutes of just standing there and him dealing with other hapless customers. He was basically ignoring me and as a result my anger levels were rising but I decided I'd get nothing from this idiot and should just put it down to experience and leave.
So off I went, cursing under my breath, but at the first hill I encountered, I discovered my lowest gear wasn't working. Steam started rushing out of my ears and murderous notions began bubbling in the pit of my stomach. Seething, I called Rat's Tail every name under the sun and rode back to the 'bike mechanic' in order to make him fix the mess he'd created.
Fat Mullet was the first person I saw and with my hands planted on my hips I said firmly -- but I didn't yell -- 'I want your friend to undo whatever the hell he did to my gears'. The message was passed on and Rat's Tail saunters out, a tad meekly, it has to be said and through gritted teeth I imparted my dissatisfaction. He told me to 'calm down missus' made a few changes and I rode off angrily, yelling back at him as I went, 'and the f*cking brakes are still squeaking!'
The gears were ok after that, still not quite right but I figured I'd let it go and get a proper bike mechanic to give the Beast a service later down the track. Although I had a recurring fantasy of going back with a flamethrower and, looking remarkably like Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, striding up to Rat's Tail, who'd be quivering behind a broken lawnmower, and hissing at him, 'YOUUUUU! I cycled 40 unnecessary kilometres and paid for an extra night's accommodation just to bring my bike to YOU, so you could spend two minutes putting some bloody oil on a few cogs but no, YOU, you piece of FILTH! YOU decided that after a two minute test ride, you knew my bike better than me, who's now done about 1000kms on it and YOU, screw up my perfect gears which I had not asked you to touch and my bike is STILL SQUEAKING! Do you know how angry I am Rat's Tail?' He would shake with terror and beg for mercy. I would smile slowly, then I'd shoot him with my flamethrower.

Death-defying downhill

After having left Glencolmcille at 11am, I arrived at the Errigal Youth Hostel at 8.30pm. A huge day of cycling. The first two hours took me over the Glengesh Pass (280m), the way up was a series of long and steady climbs followed by quick downhill runs through pastures and bogs. The weather was on my side though and the wind was miraculously at my back so the cycling was very enjoyable. Although despite being mostly blue skies, there was one black cloud that seemed to stay right over my head, cartoon style, all the way (not that I'm paranoid).
The view from the top of Glengesh Pass looking north over the town of Ardara and straight down the valley between the steep green hills on either side is spectacular. But then there's the ride down the pass. Of the 24kms I cycled in those two hours, it felt like I did half of them in the last 15 minutes as it's a perilously steep descent into Ardara. My fingers went number from gripping the brakes all the way down as I manouvred hair-pin bends and near vertical drops (ok not really vertical but they may as well have been), I think the only way to get down quicker would've been to roll up in a ball and shoot yourself out of a cannon.
Going downhill can be scary, I prefer battling my way up a steep incline than letting rip on a steep downhill run. Going downhill that fast means you have no control, one unfortunately placed pebble, an unseen pothole, or a skitty sheep jumping in the wrong direction and you're face-planting the road at a 100 miles an hour. Also, the wind whistles in your ears so you can't hear a thing, eg, gigantic trucks up your arse, and your nose and eyes end up streaming so you can't see much either. But gentle, long downhill runs are bliss.
Am now in Ardara having a cup of tea in the coffee shop inside a tweed souvenir tourist shop. I'm fighting with myself not to have a scone, surely I can go one day without eating a scone? Apparently not though. Yes, I'm giving in, it's quite a good one though, moist, with raisins. When I came out I discovered that the mysterious black cloud had dumped its watery load while I was in the cafeteria and had gone from the skies, clearly a friendly black cloud that was just waiting for me to get safely inside before releasing its cargo.

LATER THAT DAY: From Ardara I cycled around the coastline via the seaside fishing village of Rossbeg and Portnoo to Navan. There was lots of up and downhill but turning the corner into Navan and having the whole coastline of golden sandy beach spread out before you, stretching for kilometres, is quite a sight. Passing through the village, I spied a hairdressers called Curl Up and Dye which struck me as amusing. I finally arrived at my hostel having cycled the last six kilometres past the stunning, stunning scenery of the Derryveigh mountains and into the Glenveagh National Park with the majestic heights of Mount Errigal towering overhead. The hostel is in the shadow Mt Errigal and for the last four years has been managed by a Dubliner called Carl and his dog Guido. Carl was extremely welcoming and full of good information, plus he helped me fix some squeaks on my bike with a bit of well-placed WD40. I'm now in a dorm room of about 13 beds but I've got the whole room to myself -- oh happy days! Have just pigged out on a can of Irish stew, a bag of cashew nuts, two cups of hot chocolate, and two bags of crackers. Now I feel slightly sick and very tired.

Crazy Mary the cat killer in Glencolmcille

(Tam's cycling adventure, Donegal to Glencolmcille...)

The ride to Glencolmcille, a village right on the coast, was a tough but exhilerating 65kms. Lunch was at Killybegs which is 'Ireland's Premiere Fishing Port' according to the sign at the entrance. 'Right', I thought, 'then to have anything but fish for lunch would be quite wrong'. I pulled up outside the Bay View Hotel in the centre of the village and happily noted that the menu pasted on the door promised treats like 'darne of poached salmon on a bed of leek' and 'freshly caught fish of the day in a tartare sauce'. Music to my ears as my stomach's growls could now be heard by passersby. Inside the hotel was beautiful, ornate wood pannelling from floor to ceiling. I sighed with happiness and eagerly went up to the counter to order salmon before I passed out. But all they had left was chicken. 'Robbed!' I wanted to shout. ' Noooo! Robbed, robbed, robbed!!' But instead I said, 'lovely, chicken will be fine'. The lady slopped up some overcooked cabbage and what may have once been carrot batons with it but she was so polite and kind that I thanked her profusely and asked for extra cabbage.
After lunch I was back on my bike and following the coast road from Killybegs to Glencolmcille. This is where the hills really kicked in, swooping up and down, into the beaches and over the hills. Sunscreen and sweat were dripping off my face and onto the road. Each time I thought the crest of the hill HAD to be just ahead, I got over that crest only to find another, higher one. But the bogs, the mountains, the sea, and yes, even the grazing sheep were breathtaking. And the last kilometre or so into Glencolmcille were a death-defying downhill run. I gave a loud 'whoo hooooo!' as I flew into town but then found out that my hostel was another kilometre away -- all uphill. I had nothing left and had to walk part of it, my legs had given up and flat out refused to do anymore hills.
Dooey's Hostel is right on the edge of the coast overlooking a beautiful golden sand crescent of a beach. From the outside it looks like a modern day, bizarre, stone fortress. Inside it's basic but adequate but it's the owner, the 70-something, self-confessed 'crazy, old Mary', who's the jewel in this crown. After lots of tut-tutting and 'oh ye poor dear's over my arrival -- clearly suggesting I looked as bad as I felt -- Mary gave me a cup of tea and a plate of six biscuits - all of which, to my shame, I inhaled - and left me to get settled in. Mary chain smokes and swears like a sailor but for some reason her 'effing' sounds more comical than rude. She even swears in the notices she puts up around the hostel, on the compost bin it reads, 'Stop putting your FN rubbish in here, compost ONLY!!'
Not exactly the animal loving type, Mary is also not very fond of the feral cats around the place, in particular a skinny little black and white cat that comes scrounging. Her note on the front door reads 'Don't feed the wild cats - Kill them!' On this score I had to disobey Mary - secretly of course - and fed the little cat tuna although by the look of him he needed about three months in a cat health spa.
That night I headed into town to catch the musicians playing in Biddy's Bar, the blackboard outside promised the usual traditional Irish music, this time from a band called Trad Force. As usual the place didn't start filling up until 10pm which is also when the decidedly underwhelmed band members sauntered in, they put down their instruments then strolled outside for a cigarette. Wandered back in, did a bit of tuning up, wandered off for a drink and another cigarette then came back, did a bit more tuning up then finally when they obviously couldn't think of anything else to do, considered playing. But then one of them had the brilliant idea of going to the toilet. After all of them had been to the toilet, then got another drink and patted the dogs sitting just outside the door, they started to play and, credit where it's due and all that, the three lethargic individuals transformed into energetic, foot tapping, elbow waving enthusiasts, banging out one upbeat ditty after another and playing about three different instruments each. I settled in with a packet of crisps and a diet coke.
After about an hour, I wandered back to the hostel as I couldn't get much conversation going. I'd tried talking to The Most Boring Couple in the World, overweight tourists with obviously a deep love of polyester who were wordlessly sipping on a pint each and gave me one word answers to my attempts at small talk. With their last gulp of beer, they wordlessly stood up and left.
The next day I got to meet more of my fellow hostellers. I'd decided it was a rest day, it was also the day of Live8 and the final of the women's tennis and -- happily -- the hostel had a tv. But first I was off to wander around the little museum that recreates how life was in the village back in the 1700s and 1800s -- it was basic, that's for real -- I also visited the heritage centre because the Glencolmcille community is actively trying to hold onto the Irish language and culture, many courses are offered in everything from Irish to bodhran lessons (the bodhran is a drum that you'll see played in all the pubs). I was feeling a 'devil may care' so dragged out the Visa card and bought two new (!) books, namely, 'Irish Ghosts' by John J Dunne and a book on Sheela Na Gigs which are these ancient stone carvings found all over Ireland of ferocious females displaying their genitals. The theories about why these confrontational stone women were pulling their labia apart so passersby could have a good look range from the mysogonist, ie, it was so soldiers going off to battle would be reminded what smelly nasty creatures women are, and to keep right away from them; to the feminist, ie, they're from a time when women's sexuality was recognised as powerful so these carvings were to protect and bring good fortune. When I've actually read the book I'll expand on this some more.
In the afternoon a brief storm blew in and it was, as an English hosteller so aptly put it, 'chucking it down' although when he said it it sounded like 'chooking it down' which immediately had me imagining a skyful of falling chickens. I spent a couple of hours in the common room reading the papers and watching Live8 while six wholesome Welsh youths went over their strategy for a four-day ramble into the mountains as part of Duke of Edinburgh awards. Then Michael, an handsome-but-brusque Englishman from Bristol who came to Glencolmcille for a month's fishing and got roped into wall-building by Mary, asked me if he could switch the tv over to the tennis. What can one say? I had to say 'sure, if you must'. Despite a couple of efforts to be vaguely friendly, Michael and I seemed to clash. Although he did let me roll a cigarette from his tobacco pouch (Mum, it wasn't for me to smoke you understand, it was simply an exercise in finger dexterity) but then we had a disagreement over the novel Wuthering Heights (I know, of all the things...), all I said was that I thought Cathy and Heathcliff were horrible people, he stormed off ranting about how it's 'only one of the greatest stories of obsessive love ever written...' or some such. Suffice to say, we didn't hit it off.
So I spent the evening in the sitting room sharing a bottle of Chilean white with Midge, a lovely girl from Cardiff who was the supervisor for the five Duke of Edinburgh youths who were heading off into the wilderness with their tents the next morning. The next morning I left too (after secretly feeding tuna to the cat one last time).

Arrows up the Arse in Donegal

(Tam's cycling adventure continues... Sligo to Donegal...)

I'm in the tea shop next to the church in Drumcliff where the poet W.B Yeats is buried next to his wife George. It's a lovely old church and Yeats' dad was the rector there till he died. There's a memorial plaque to him inside. I sat in the church for a while, attempting to meditate, attuning to a higher spiritual plane and all that but inner peace proved elusive because of the hoardes of tourists that'd just arrived by the busload, who all marched into the church for a look and tried to be oh-so-quiet with their loud 'whispered' voices, their 'sshhhing' each other, and their rubber-soled shoes squeaking with every tip-toed step. It was a big distraction from finding inner peace let me tell you, although chances are I wouldn't have found it anyway, I've never managed it before. My spiritual side is easily distracted. And yes, I know I'm a tourist too, a hoarde of one. Me and the busloads were all there to cop an eyeful of Yeats' grave and to read the headstone which says:

'Cast a cold eye
On Life, on Death.
Horsemen, pass by!'

Ooh yes, he was deep that Yeats. It's from his poem called 'Under Ben Bulben' which, coincidentally, is pretty much exactly where Yeats is now because the Ben Bulben mountain is just beyond Drumcliff. And I had EVERY intention of climbing said mountain after the visit to Drumcliff, I swear, but as luck would have it, it started raining heavily as I left the church so there was nothing else to do but head into the tea and craft shop, which is about twenty metres from Yeats' grave and very handy for the tourists, to have a cup of tea and a scone. I am becoming addicted to scones, I'm eating at least one a day. It must stop. Anyway, post-scone consumption and with the rain having subsided to a drizzle, I was soon back on my bike and heading to Donegal. On the way I rode through the seaside town of Bundoren which is lovely and - would you believe - a surfing mecca. I know! In Ireland! But apart from a quick side trip to the lovely beach, I kept pedalling till I reached Ballyshannon, which is where I had lunch. Ballyshannon is a beautiful old town built on steep hills beside the River Eyre. I stopped at a pub and had a warm chicken salad with grapes and olives - it was stunning, who knew that cooked grapes and olives could be so delicious. By now the rain was a distant memory and I was sweltering in the heat, sunscreen and sweat were melting off my face. Four seasons in one day pretty much sums up the Emerald Isle.
On the way out of Ballyshannon, I came across a secondhand bookshop that someone ran out of their garage. It relied heavily on the honesty policy because there was no shop assistant in sight, what there was was a little jar sitting on a chair with the notice 'please pay for books here'. There was already about 10 euro sitting in the jar. Instead of paying for the two books I took, I swapped them with two other books. Good books I'll have you know but ok, no, it's not quite as honest as it could be.
From there almost all the cycling was up the national highway which meant big trucks thundered past me regularly at spectacular speeds.
I arrived in Donegal at about 6pm (after cycling about 6 hours), met Linda the co-owner of the Independent Hostel and her friendly cocker spaniel, Scooby. The hostel was homely and large with a huge sweeping lawn out front for those poor suckers who had tents, it had the odd bizarre touch though, like a toilet seat with barbed wire embedded in the plastic and a male shop mannequin installed in one of the shower cubicles. 'He' doesn' half give you a fright when you wander in for the first time. Little screams from the shower block could be heard periodically throughout the evening. What with 'him' and the barbed wire loos, Linda is clearly trying to make even ablutions memorable.
After showering and unpacking, I sat and watched a bit of the Wimbledon semi final between Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams (as we all know by now, Venus killed Sharapova) and during the grunt-fest got talking to a 60-something gardener from Tasmania called Peter but later I got uncomfortable when he came and sat a bit too close to me on the sofa... kind of like when you're the only person on a bus and someone gets on and sits right next to you. I was probably being overly sensitive but I made my escape by heading to a pub in town. The only problem was that I was too early, I was there at 8pm and the place was deserted. The band wasn't starting till 10pm -- as is the way in this country -- but by 9pm, as people started trickling in, I was falling asleep at the bar so I took myself back to the hostel before someone got the police to move me on and watched some tv with Scooby. He was gently snoring on the chair next to me, his flappy, silken ears hanging over the arms, his nose twitching as his little head dreamed doggy dreams, until Linda came in shrieking and flapping her arms about, 'Get orf my nice sofa you dirty, smelly little monster!' I leapt up of course, apologising and assuring her I'd showered, but she was talking to Scooby.
As I headed to bed, embarrassingly earlier than most other hostellers, Linda assured me it was a 'quiet house'. At 8am the next morning I awoke to the sound of a herd of angry elephants tap dancing their fury away in the room directly upstairs. I swear I could see the imprints of their feet in the ceiling as the huge beasts landed. Incredibly, the tap dancing elephants could also speak German. And they must have worked up a sweat because even with my limited German I could hear them discussing taking a shower before breakfast. I never knew elephants ate toast either.
Suddenly, desperate to get out of there and into a quiet cafe in town, I jumped out of bed, pulled on the same clothes as the day before (and the day before that if you must know, first rule of hostelling: Lower Your Hygiene Standards), threw my belongings into my panniers and hightailed it into Donegal town. Said goodbye to some Germans having breakfast in the kitchen but they said nothing about having met any angry tapdancing elephants.
Found a lovely little cafe called The Blueberry in town and ordered poached eggs, toast and tea. Sitting at the next table were an American family of three, a couple and their pubescent daughter -- who was at that stage where she'd clearly been a gawky kid but was now on the brink of turning into a real stunner -- who'd been on the tour of the Carrowmore Tombs that I'd done in Sligo the day before. We all pretended not to recognise each other. An hour later we were all on the same tour of Donegal Castle yet still managed to maintain our pretense of never having clapped eyes on each other before.
But let me tell you a bit about the tour of the Castle, it was taken by a lad called Barry who told us how the castle was built by Red Hugh O'Donnell in the 1400s. The O'Donnell's were warring people, constantly fighting with their neighbours, so the castle had all sorts of features to thwart enemies, like a Trip Staircase where the steps are of uneven sizes so that invaders would lose their footing as they tried to run up and stab people. There was also a secret passage in the dining hall, hidden behind a wall tapestry, that led down to the river where Red Hugh kept a hidden escape boat. Red Hugh also adjusted the design of the toilet to thwart attackers, originally, the loos were just long drops to the river but Red Hugh realised that all his enemies needed to do was wait till he was on the toilet then shoot an arrow up the pipe and into his bottom. I don't know if someone had to figure this out the hard way. So Red Hugh came up with a pipe that had a bend in the end of it. The original S bend.