Thursday 1 November 2012

An Irish bike ride

Last night I went to an excellent talk by traveller and adventurer Jasper Winn. This was one of the Wilderness Lectures, a series of wonderful talks held every year in Bristol on the theme of travel and adventure. Jasper has a lifetime of travel experiences to draw on: cycling across the Sahara (and back), spending a year with a Berber family in the Atlas Mountains, crossing South America on a horse, the usual sort of thing we all do now and again...or maybe not. This particular talk was about a solo kayak trip around the coast of Ireland. Although I enjoyed it very much, I had no desire whatsoever to take up kayaking. Or canoeing. Apparently there's a difference although I wouldn't know...

When I got home I dug out my photos from the cycling trip I did earlier this year in Ireland, from Mizen to Malin (the scenic route). Unlike Lejog, I had decided not to write a blog whilst on this trip, although I wrote copious notes. In hindsight, I rather wished I had (blogged I mean). I had been determined to carry less stuff on this journey than I had on Lejog and the laptop became a victim, along with the shampoo and conditioner (a buff will cover a multitude of sins including hair that has not been washed for a month) and most of the clothes (pah, cleanliness is over-rated anyway). Hopefully the notes from the journey will at some point form the subject of a future book, which is one of the reasons this blog is suffering from a little neglect lately. But I thought I would take the time to post a few pictures, not least because it will force me to sort them out rather than leave them all stuffed in a virtual shoebox called 'pictures of Ireland'. Here are a few of my favourites in no particular order:




Maccarthy's AKA McCarthy's Bar







The Railway Inn, Dingle Peninsula
The Doolin Dolphin


A popular Irish drink



Beara Peninsula

Cliffs of Moher

Baby Hannah's, Skibbereen


Gus O'Connors, Doolin
          




Inishmore

More scenery than you can shake a stick at

Maeve the goat queen

Giant's Causeway
The Conor Pass



Donkey, Inishmore

Connemara


Connemara horses


Blue Sky in Ireland...
Typical weather - Ireland

More typical weather - Ireland


Titanic Exhibition, Belfast