Chaplog tries hard In which an ageing climber comes to terms with life closer to the ground.

1/9/2005

Last stop Dingle

Filed under: General — Mike Chapman @ 9:53 pm

Gallarus Oratory an early christian church made with stone but no mortar and does not let water in – built AD 800

What is suprising to me is in all that time no has thought I could use that stone for my garden wall/barn or whatever.

We started cylcing early as Lynne wanted to get out of our very dirty hostel. She brought breakfast into the room and we were on the road before 8:00 am a personal best!

We had an ealy stop at a hippie restaurant that made us coffee just after 9:30, we were impressed. Our next stop was the beach at Inch an impressive set of sand dunes and a great surfing spot. They are keen to develop a links golf course but others are protesting as it will spoil the wildlife sanctuary. We met the Canadians again and after looking at their bikes I realised that I had already made the decision that I wanted a touring bike.

Dingle was everything that Killorglyn was not. Nice restaurants, clean streets. Our Hostel was a manor house a mile out of town and I mean a manor house.

Our five star hostel

154/08/05

Dingle – Dingle 34 miles

This was the circular tour without panniers. We started early in a clock wise direction for the same reason we went anti clockwise around Kerry, to avoid the coaches. Our aim was to hit the historical sites early and it worked better than we could have imagined.

Dingle at night

We met an idiot car driver who overtook us and then braked sharply in front of us. This was observed by an Irish cyclist who explained what he would do to the driver when he found him. He also showed us the adaptation he had made to his pump to damage the cars of drivers that had upset him. I felt he might have upset this car driver before he met us and hence the aggressive driving. We visited Dunbey Promentory Fort – we were the first there. A variety of beehive huts

Beehive Huts

that were interesting in the fact that they were built like igloos out of stone with no mortar. We spent time at The Blasket Centre in Dún Chaoin, on the tip of the Dingle Peninsula,

“it celebrates the story of the Blasket Islanders, the unique literary achievements of the island writers and their native language, culture and tradition.” The introduction does not sound too good but it was fascinating.

Blasket Centre

16/08/05

Dingle to Tralee 33 miles

The day started with a long ascent of Conners pass – the highest in Ireland. We got fantastic views of Dingle and North to Brandon Bay but were too early to hear the resident harpist! We rode hard on a road that got progressively busier. We were so eager to get there in plenty of time to catch the bus that we forgot to eat. We both felt weak and had to drop into a pub for food and coffee. We had no problems catching a bus and we were back in Cork at the travel lodge. We packed the bikes up outside in the sun. A good trip.

Photographs of Dingle

1 Comment

  1. The pic of view of beach near Smerwick harbour is the one I meant when talking to Lynne. Breathtaking. I did the Connor pass too – completely clagged in when we did it. We went on to Galway. A touring bike? I have been riding a Dawes Galaxy for many a year now (off and on) but I’m sure there are posher.

    Comment by Anonymous — 8/9/2005 @ 7:11 pm

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