To Conclude.
I rode from Killarney to Tarbert and donned the ferry to Killmer. This only took about 30mins, but the wind had brewed up some nice waves, and the deck was getting a tad wet, but we made it across safely.
I decided to head to the campsite at Clifden, as according to their website, it was not far from Galway. How wrong was I!
I rode over an hour to Galway and stopped to warm up at Maccers and to get some WiFi and see if there were any hostels around. There were one or two, however, I had just bought a new tent, and really wanted to try it out, and the views at the campsite were amazing. So I headed onwards.
I was tired and drained and the site was another 90minutes away It was around 500km I rode that day, as you can see from the picture.
The roads were amazing with their scenery, however, I did not stop. The clouds opened and rain hit them hard, and then the sun shone down, and clear then became an issue. It was during this time I had a moment. I was going around a shallow left-hand bend when I hit some bad surface and a bump caused the back end to kick out sideways. I was doing around 100kph at the time and this woke me up rather fast! I managed to keep her upright, but it just confirmed I was fatigued, and riding beyond my limits for the day.
I made it to camp just after 9 pm. The reception closed at 8 pm, however, they lived on site and were happy to assist me and I found a patch to call home for my final night.
I opened my new tent, and looked at the poles, and thought man these are weedy, only to have this confirmed when I tried to erect my dome and all of a sudden the wind came and snapped the poles, so alas I had to drag the leaky tent out. Lucky for me I had dried it out the eve of arrival and it was ok now, so I pitched it up for the night. At least it didn’t rain, the wind was high but it was a dry night.
The final camp.
A nice view,
Something to go with dinner.
We even had our own private beach, which bottlenosed dolphins often visit. Just a pod of 30 have been seen recently.
I cooked some food and settled in. It was 11:30 pm but it seemed I was so far west, that it was still light. I read some of my books, and found out that I was further away from Dublin than I thought I was, and it was going to take 4hrs to get there. 😯 There goes my lie in I thought!
Alarm set for 6 am I packed my stuff and loaded the bike. I spent some time trying to find my gloves to no avail. I was so tired last night I must have forgotten to put them away, and the blew away somewhere. Lucky for me I packed spares, so I fitted them and off I rode.
The weather was great, warm and dry and I headed back to Mullingar to return the tent I never used. Along the way, I stopped off along the road that tried to kill me and took some images.
I made it to my Auncles house around 10:30 am in Multyfarnham, after having an argument with my satnav, which didn’t inform me I was on the N4 Toll, I did not have the 1euro charge as I had spent all my euros at the garage on fuel, so I didn’t have to take them back. I explained this to the lady and gave her 50c and 5p and she let me pass. 😳
I had some food and a chat, and headed back and go my refund. My ferry was at 3 pm so I headed to Dublin for 1 pm so I had time to go and relax with a pint of Guniess. However I parked my bike and headed to a pub, which only took a card for 10 euros or more, so I went to find a cash machine. For the size of the city of Dublin, there is bugger all cash machines. I found 1, and this only wanted to give me 20euros, so this was no good. After another 30mins I gave up and tried to remember where I parked the bike.
I found the beast and headed to the terminal, stopping off to take a picture of the three teddy bear type statues.
I embarked the ferry and arrived around 7 pm back in Holyhead, ready (or not) for the trip home.