Road Trip Of Ireland 4

Day 4

On the final day, in the morning, I went back to one of the bars I had been into the previous night, and got a big fry up, nice onwe too, rpactically all I could eat, the woman serving me thought I was from Tyrone or Donegal, evne though I’m a Down man!

I then rode off, onlty to realise I needed fuel, stopped off at the nearest garage, got seved by someone that looked and sounded like they were from Eastern Europe. Not that theres anything wrong with that, just an observation, how things change over time.

I then rode up the M6 towards Athlone, the road was good, but I found it a bit mind numbing, and as soon as I seen signs for Athlone, I thought “screw it, I taking a diversion”, as the buffeting on the motorway from carrying the rucksack on my back was getting too much.

Athlone, in County Westmeath was a nice place, much to commend it, as it had a lot of nice architecture, a lot of history too, pity it wasn’t warmer then, but, what do you expect in January? I do remember a LOT of people queueing up, presumably for Garth Brooks tickets, the Garth Brooks shows that never were,

After that, I went up in the direction of Cavan, and landed in Cavan town, where I got a bite to eat. My uncle/godfather is from there, os it was nice to see the county that he was from, first time I’ve been in it in years. I then got lost, thinking I had seen as sign for Armagh (city), when in actual fact I had seen a sign for Arvagh. Easy mistake to make I suppose, stopped after a while, got my map out and found my bearings, and tried to head in the direction of Monaghan town.

On the way to there, quite a lot of the journey was spent going over from one side of the border to the other, and vice versa, as the route alternated between “speed limit in kmh” to “speed limit in mph”. I got to Monaghan okay, then headed for Armagh, got therwe without any difficulty, filled up the tank again, and rode through Tandragee and then home.

I worked it out afterwards, but I think I covered nearly 1000 miles on my bike. If I had done this in a car, it would’ve been a breeze, but on a bike, it was a challenge – something that can be done easily enough, but it challeneges you in many ways, physically (wind blast, ruck sack, the actual riding) and mental (riding again, being aware of everything around you, planning your route).

I’m really glad I done it, and hopefully, I will get a chance to do individual tours of each ancient province in Ireland.