Adventures in Alisonland: The first day of rain!

Ramblings - Two things to share: I have never seen as many dead birds in all my life as I have seen on this trip. Everyday I see at least 3 dead birds - sometimes smooshed, sometimes whole, but dead. Very strange. As for food, I have some very sad news to share - I am taking a sebatical from my veganism while here. :( I kept it up for a few days, but since we are just buying food from markets to eat along the way, I started to worry about protein and nutrients. I am still not eating cheese, milk or eggs - but I am eating a yogurt for breakfast every morning. Every morning I eat yogurt, banana, and a bread. Every lunch is a mini baguette with either pb/jelly or nutella and an apple. Sometimes carrots if I can find them. And then dinner changes. If we are at a hostel, usually pasta and vegis. If not, then some quick heat soup or more bread. And some chocolate for dessert. Pretty boring really, but quite tasty all the same.

June 28

Thank god! We are finally done cycling the Ring of Beara - after another 36 miles today in the rain and gale force winds the whole way. After the day before, both Ron and I decided to keep it easy today and shorten the mileage. We had a noon time start today after sleeping in to 9:30 this morning and didn't really stop along the way. I'm sure the scenary was as a beautiful as the day before, but we couldn't see anything in the wind and fog and rain, so I can't say that for certain. So here we are now, in the town of Kenmare, ready to tackle not one but two mountain passes tomorrow on the way to Killarney.

Our new cycling friend, John, from Australia. He has been cycling for 2 years and plans to do another 2 more.

Our campground from the night before, in Ron's favorite town Eyeries.

June 27

We left Glengarriff and headed off to tackle the Ring of Beara, which we knew would be mountainous. However, nothing prepared us for the mountains we tackled all day long. The weather was great, I managed to suffer another burn, and the views were amazing all day long, but my quads were screaming all day too. Even though less mileage, today took us a few extra hours and by the time we had ridden 53 miles I was done done done. We ended up in the cutest, friendliest town of Eyeries where the local pub let us pitch our tent out back in a field behind the bar. The best part was, they had live music that night too, and stumbling home was no such problem. (I only had one pint, the stumbling was really more a result of sore legs. lol)

Again, along the never ending Ring of Beara.

The road on the way along the Ring of Berea

Ron and I getting ready for our picnic lunch during The Ring of Beara.

June 26

I didn't include any photos of today, but we basically spent the whole day, 63 plus miles, biking from Cork to Glengarriff. This was actually my favorite day of riding, with the scenery and the small towns, some of which only had signs in Gaelic. We ended up pitching our tent in this sweet old man Paddy's yard for only 10 Euros. (Campgrounds charge us about 16+ Euros.) We spent the night enjoying live traditional music, in one of the local pubs right across from the ocean. 63 miles of cycling today.

June 25

Thanks to my superb inner clock, I was able to wake Ron and I up in-time to catch the 7 am bus to Cork - our next destination. The bus driver was hilarious - giving people discounts for the bus and calling girls dodgy looking. Too much fun! We got into Cork by 10 ish, checked into a hostel, and biked off to see Blarney Castle and of course the stone. We actually waited in line for over an hour, just to kiss the stone, which I then assured everyone then I was free of oral Herpes, well at least was before I kissed that stone. Eeehhhwwww. We spent the rest of the day walking around Cork and exploring the famous market there. Loads of dead animals and only 13 miles of cycling.

Me smooching the Blarney Stone

Blarney Castle

June 24

Ron and I decided to spend the day exploring the medieval town of Kilkenny since we didn't arrive in enough time the day before. We started the day with a tour of Kilkenny Castle, and eventually made our way to St. Canice's Cathedral were we climbed the tower. Great day to wear a dress - I assure you. We walked for hours and ran into all sorts of fun folk - one who told us about the motorcycle road races in Athea - close to Limerick. Ireland and the Isle of Mann are the only places left where they still allow moto road racing - so we started planning on how to make it work. 0 miles cycling.