I started out of Bangor early and cycled the 40 kms or so to Holyhead before noon. Bought a ferry ticket to Dun Laoghaire (Ireland) and went to get pastries for lunch while waiting for the ferry. The boat ride was uneventful and upon arrival, I decided to avoid Dublin to the north as I didn't feel like entering a big city and cycled south to Bray instead. In Bray, it started to rain pretty hard so I took a B&B and settled there for the night.

From Bray, I headed southwest into the Wicklow mountains. It was grey and cold but the cycling was all uphill, so I warmed up pretty quickly. As I climbed further towards Wicklow's Gap, the mountains became barren.

As I climbed further still, I noticed what appeared to be a large castle near the mountain tops... When I got there, it was built of plywood and painted canvas... a film decor... Talking with the stagehands, I learned that they had just finished filming Disney's latest flick, "Rain of Fire", a story about dragons coming back with a "Mad Max" type of hero... Apparently the director is from Mad Max and the writer from X-Files... It took 6 months to build and US$12 million and they were just about to start demolishing it...

When I got to the pass, it was raining. The clouds were all piling up on the western side of the pass and it rained continuously on the way down the other side... I was cold and wet and as I turned to look at a farmhouse where I could hear some music, a man, sitting on the porch, waved me over. Stephen Lawless, an aging hippy of 53, offered me hot beef broth, then hot coffee and then a Guinness and we then ended up going to the pub in Hollywood (I kid you not !), the nearby village.

I had dinner, drank, played pool and talked with the villagers... till 2 AM when we were thrown out. I ended up crashing at Stephen's farmhouse for the night.

I woke up late and, soon afterwards, Stephen woke up. As Stephen got ready for church (he said he goes every Sunday because the women are beautiful and sing nicely... and being seen helps him get lifts around) I told him I'd be leaving since the day was beautiful and I felt like cycling. So, we parted.

When I lived in Calgary, Canada, there was an Irish pub called the "Tullamore" so I decide to cycle to Tullamore that day. The route had nothing special... nor the village... but it was a nice cycling day !

It was grey all day, but the cycling was fine.

In the late morning, I passed this old castle on the side of the road and stopped for a rest and a snack.

Later on, crossing the river Shannon, I wandered in this quaint village.

Mid-afternoon, I passed through Ballinasloe with its pretty little townhouses.

And in the end, I stopped at Tuam for the night and took a room above a pub.

In the morning, I had trouble finding a road that cut through between Tuam and Cong, so I asked directions to a delivery man who was happy to tell me that he lived near Cong at Neale and that that was were the word "boycott" came from. A priest named O’Malley organized a boycott of a tyrant proprietor who subsequently had to leave since no one would deal with or work for him. Anyway, on the way I passed near these old ruins of a castle.

Cong is a typical tourist village... real pretty with lots of shops to entice tourists into parting with their money. I took a few photos and left quickly before spending anything.

From Cong, I went north to Westport. A pretty little village near a pyramidal mountain (Croagh Patrick) where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days on its summit. There's a chapel now on top and many pilgrims make the ascent.

The day started out beautiful, but got progressively cloudier as I moved north. The scenery was fine but nothing much to write about.

I got up in the morning and the weather looked really bad. By the time I was ready to leave though the sun was shining and the whole day was pretty good.

The scenery on the western coast of Ireland was beautiful. Like this pretty little village, Bundoran, that I passed through on my way to Donegal.

JULIEN & TITUS' CYCLING TRIP

> HOME > TRAVELOGUES > EUROPE (2001) > NORTHERN IRELAND

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Got up again to a cloudy day but it appeared that the clouds were mostly mist rising from the night's raining so I left northeast towards Lifford... 20 kms uphill fighting a strong headwind through a mountain pass... And, as I neared the pass, it became obvious that the mountains were holding the clouds on the other side... Sure enough, at the pass I was hit with rain, so I changed to my raingear in an old abandoned house and continued on. At Lifford, it didn't inspire me much so I crossed into Northern Ireland at Strabane (here there is police checking out people going from Northern Ireland into Ireland, but not the other way around... bizarre !), which didn't inspire me much either, so I decided to head for Londonderry, I got there towards the end of the afternoon and settled in a Youth Hostel.

In the late evening, while sitting at the hostel, I heard a few very loud BANGS!!! So we all looked out the windows to see if they were bombs (yeah... right !). I noticed a group of kids running away outside, so I guess they were playing with firecrackers.... Guess we know what they will play with when they get older....

The next morning it was raining "cats and dogs" so I decided to have a day off in Londonderry. I wandered around and spent some time at the public library. It appears there's a cycle route along the Great Glen in Scotland that includes the Loch Ness... I'll have to check that out.

The day was great... cool and sunny... And the scenery along the northern coast was just beautiful. In my opinion, so far, Northern Ireland has the prettiest coastline.

I stopped at these ruins (the Dunluce castle) for a snack and a rest).

The Giant's Causeway which, mythically, was put down by a war god in his eagerness to get to Scotland to fight a challenger but, was really created by lava cooling rapidly in the North Sea.

I decided to call it a day at Whitepark Bay's Youth Hostel, which was pretty close to Ballicastle where I could take a ferry to Campbeltown in Scotland.

Left in the early morning to cycle the few kms to Ballicastle and catch an early ferry to Scotland. Well, when I get there it appears that the ferry isn't operating this year... My alternative is to take another ferry at Larne to Cairnryan... a day to cycle to Larne and at least two days south of where I wanted to be in Scotland... Oh well... I have lots of time...

The road from Ballicastle to Cushendall was just grand through green hills and misty forests along a deep valley and from Cushendall I hugged the coast south to Larne.

When I came to Larne, there was a ferry leaving shortly and after a couple of hours' on the ferry I arrived at Cairnryan, Scotland in the early evening.

Overall, Ireland is just as pretty as England... maybe prettier in a way... It’s wilder and less manicured. The southeast quadrant being pretty much like Wales in geographical features; the center like England; and the north coast with rugged cliffs falling into the sea... In fact a section of coast in the northwest between Galway and Westport has just been voted one of the world’s top 10 drives for scenery by automobile associations... and the northeast coastline is just as sublime...

Ireland is also much less densely populated than England (about 4 million people) and the Irish make very little use of hedges... but love their stone fences... They’re everywhere... One would think that they’ve cleaned up their fields of stones and built these little walls around them... but it’s hard to believe that fields would have so many stones... hence they’ve had to bring the stones from elsewhere... seems like a lot of trouble to go through...

That’s not the only trouble they give themselves... In the Republic (Southern Ireland) they use separate currency... the ¨puntz¨, which is worth a bit less than the English pound..., and everything is a bit cheaper than in England... In Northern Ireland, while they use English coins, each bank prints it’s own banknotes (which aren’t widely accepted outside)... quite confusing...

But in my eyes, Ireland’s real character comes from the Irish people... Warm, friendly and passionate... They’re supposed to be descendants of the Celts... but somehow, their character seems very latin...

Maybe I’ve just been lucky... but pick any Irish person and talk to him and it’s like he’s always known you... and not just talk... I’ve received free hospitality at an Irish farm after a wet and cold cycle through a mountain pass as the farmer saw me cycling miserably in from his porch...

But their passion mixed with a little obstinacy is what is getting them in trouble... A certain discussion I had with an Irishman at a pub that involved a disagreement over capital punishment ended with him raging insults and leaving... No wonder they’ve been fighting each other forever...

In Ireland, the pub is the center of social life... Everybody migrates to it in the late evening after dinner and it often goes on way past closing time (2 AM) in the streets around the pub... They say that if you want for something to be widely known... you tell it in the pub...

In my book, Ireland rates as one of the best places to cycle through...