By Dave Daniels

I’ll start off with the overall plan. Leave the east coast of Lincolnshire and head for Holyhead, catch ferry to Dublin and stay there over night. Next day head for Cork and then stay there the night. After that pick up the Wild Atlantic Coast road and go until we fancied stopping and find a B&B or something. Do that for the next 5 days working our way up as far as Galway, if we got that far, then head back to Dublin to catch the ferry and home.

I will say at this point that I have been to Ireland many times, but always flying or occasionally driving, but not touring on a bike, however I knew what the roads a were going to be like.

The Bikes:

• Suzuki 650 V-Strom (me)
• Triumph Speed Triple (John)
• Kawasaki ZRX (Morag)

 

Day 1 – Lincolnshire to Dublin

 

So the trip from Lincolnshire to Holyhead is long and not very exciting, we could have taken the scenic route but just thought “lets just get there”, so took the motorways. All very boring until we stopped at a service station on the M62, where there was a gang of yobs riding around the car park on a couple of scooters, without helmets and scarfs covering their faces. So you knew they were trouble. They were eyeing up someone’s Ducati but I think that once we and others from the service station started heading towards them they took off. The rest of the ride to Holyhead was not worth mentioning, although the traffic wasn’t at all bad and the weather was lovely.

The advantage of being on a bike and getting on a ferry is you’re normally first to be loaded and so first to get a seat and first to the food.

I had memorized the route through Dublin to a friends house we were to stop at that night, however there was a “fun run” going on that day and so there were diversions and more traffic than usual, which I couldn’t filter very well due to the size of the panniers. So what should have taken less than 15 minutes, took over three quarters of an hour.

When we got to my friends he had prepared some wonderful food and afterwards we went to the pub for a pint of the black stuff. All was good.

 

Day 2 – Dublin to Co. Cork

 

Left Dublin to head for Cork down on the south east coast. I had programmed a route into the sat nav, which should have avoided all motorways. However I didn’t do my research as well I had thought on making up routes for Garmin. I now know, well think, that you need to put in as many way-points as possible to get the exact route you want, not just a couple along the way. The reason for this is the sat nav will take you on its perceived quickest route from point A to point B, so in this case it did route us on a few motorways. However due to the heat and the distance we needed to travel on this the second day we just followed the sat nav. We saw some nice roads, some very narrow, twisty roads and made progress on motorways.

We got to a town called Ballincollig, just outside Cork city itself, Ballincollig I used to know well when I was a teenager. Boy has it changed. We stayed here in a pre-booked B&B, as we hadn’t hit the Wild Atlantic road yet. Here we just went to the local shops to get bread, cheese and wine and had a picnic for evening meal.

 

Day 3 – Riding the Wild Atlantic Way, South to North

 

This was the day I was both excited about and dreading at the same time. I had initiated this little trip, but had never been on it myself. We except we can do nothing with the weather, although we generally find someone to blame, but were the roads and sights going to be any good, I had no idea?

We set off from Ballincollig to head for Kinsale, the start or end of the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW) depending on which way you are going, North to South or South to North. We were going South to North.

We got to Kinsale and effectively turned right (west) to pick up the WAW. I knew that the WAW was signposted, that’s how I found out about it in the first place (another story), but I was skeptical as to what extent. I need not have worried, you can negotiate the route without the need of a sat nav if you so desired, the route is well sign posted and if you’re not riding like a bat out of hell then easy to follow. Oh in case you’re wondering, the symbol for the WAW on the sign posts is a wavy white line on a blue background. So we made our way to what I thought would be a nice first stop, Old Head.

This was the start of days of wonderful scenery and lovely sunshine. At this point we were going to make our way along to Mizen Head, but didn’t, instead we opted for the easy option and headed for Bantry.

Here we found a B&B easy enough, a lovely elderly lady who wasn’t offering breakfast because she had managed to break her arm a little while ago. She carried it in a makeshift sling, made from what I think was a head scarf. However her arm would often come out of the sling and get used, especially for waving or taking money. But the rooms were nice, clean and tidy. She was a character.

 

Day 4 – Kenmare

 

As the B&B wasn’t doing the breakfast we headed into town and had an overly hearty full Irish. We then set off, the long way around to Kenmare. Once again we were treated to view after lovely view.

The roads now are getting quite narrow (as I expected), but the surfaces, for the most part, where good. Better than half the “A” roads in Lincolnshire.

The going was now slowing down, not because of the roads and definitely not because of the traffic. It was simply because we kept stopping to look at the views that kept on coming up around every corner.

We eventually made our way into a town called Kenmare. Here we had a little trouble finding a B&B that wasn’t wanting to charge silly money, however after a little negotiating we got to stay in a nice Guest house above a Restaurant called Davitt’s. After a little rest and shower we headed out to have a walk around town, where we came across a McCarthy bar, so we popped in and then ordered food. After a short while musicians turned up and started playing and a good night was had by all.

The table next to us was occupied by two French couples, lovely people, who unfortunately didn’t speak much English, however sign language and facial expressions go a long way, plus Morag speaks French very well. After one of the French men tried my Murphy’s he promptly ordered some for himself. I believe he left a very happy man. I don’t know about the next morning though.

 

Day 5 – Ring of Kerry

 

The mileage was getting to Morag, for reasons I will not go into. However I will say that, after what Morag had just gone through, most people would not have even attempted this trip or made it to the ferry, so all credit to her for getting this far. So we split up, Morag was to head on the most direct route to Dingle, our next port of call, whilst John and myself took the long route around the west side of the Ring of Kerry.

What can I say about this days ride? I loved it. I had the biggest smile all the way round. The roads were billiard table smooth with long sweeping bends, then sharp Alpine type corners going up hill, then the views, breath taking. It was at this point that John came out with a comment that I will for ever remember about this trip, “Ireland… It just keeps giving”.

This ride took John and myself 6+ hours to go around, this was because we kept stopping very half mile or so to look at the scenery. Brilliant.

Morag by all accounts also had a lovely ride, she said that the scenery she went through was also just a breath taking through part of the Killarney National Park. Judging from the pictures she took (sorry I don’t have them) it was indeed just as nice.

John and myself eventually met up with Morag in Dingle. Unfortunately Morag was having a job getting a B&B for us, but just as we arrived she had sorted it.

So we parked up the bikes and then headed into Dingle, a nice little town with a harbour. We sampled some local ice cream and then went shopping for another picnic. When we got back to the B&B (Brosnans B&B) the lovely owners said that we should use the dinning room to have our meal, even though it had been set up for breakfast the next morning, nothing was too much trouble. We then sat outside finishing the wine watching the sun go down.

 

Day 6 – Dingle Peninsula

 

This was a funny sort of a day. It all started off normal, we got up, had breakfast and prepared to get on the bikes. Morag then got a phone call which made us all very happy. We then set off to do the Dingle peninsular. We headed off to the west and followed the signs. As we are now becoming accustomed to, and once again we are treated to wonderful views.

However an hour and a half later I notice that we seemed to be heading back were we started. I did have to laugh when I pulled over and then pointed out a building to John asking him if he recognised it. After a slight shake of the head I told him it was where we slept last night. I don’t know if he, laughed, smiled or swore as I took off quick

Now heading in the right direction, towards Tralee, we were on “N” roads (the equivalent to our larger “A” roads). We stopped in Tralee for a brew to then carried on towards Tarbert to catch the ferry over to the road for Kilrush.

We rode through Kilrush and got as far as Kilkee before deciding that we had had enough and we will now try finding somewhere to sleep. Also someone wanted to watch a football game that was being played on the TV (something to do with a world cup or something).

So once again after some quite funny negotiating we got a couple of rooms and spent the night in Kilkee, had fish and chips on the sea front wall and then a couple of pints until the football was over then to bed.

 

Day 7 – Riding to Loughrea, Co. Galway

 

I have relations living not too far away from Galway City in a town called Loughrea, so we thought we would now leave the WAW and head towards them. It is slightly more inland and heading in the right direction for the ferry home.

Got to Loughrea on what was yet another glorious day. We stopped off at lough Rea’s waters edge to watch kids and parents alike throw themselves into the cold water and have a chat with a few people.

That is something that I haven’t mentioned as yet, the amount of people that will just come up and have a chat with you is amazing. There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that at least 2 or 3 people have been walking past us whilst we were parked up and just stopped to have a chat, curious to know where we were from, where we were going and the route we were going to take. They would often then tell us what to have a look at along the way or if we were to take a different road we would see something even more spectacular.

Anyway we got to my relations and made ourselves useful buy buying a take away and a few beers and wine.

 

Day 8 – Croagh Patrick

 

Today we left the bikes where they were and were driven to a “mountain” called Croagh Patrick. Something that after a few beers the night before sounded like it would be good to have a go at.

When we got there and the top of it was still in the clouds, I thought “oh hell…that’s high”. Still give it a go. I will admit now that I only got up about a third of it when my knee decided that it had had enough mucking about and I should go down now or get carried down. Still the view from just a third of the way up is very good.

It’s a good two and a half hour scramble up to the top and an hour and a half stumble down.

There is a “thing” about this mountain as well, people climb up and down it in bare feet (nutters). Whilst there we saw a young lad of roughly 10 years old who was doing just that. I found out before we left that he had in fact completed the whole climb up and down without shoes or socks. Fair play to him, but I still think he’s nuts and his parents are worse for letting him do it.

 

Day 9 – Journeu Back

 

Head home. Again we could have taken the scenic route from Loughrea to Dublin but we thought we’d spend more time in bed and take the motorway, which is only approx. two and half hours.

Got to the ferry in good time where we watched and laughed at a Lamborghini trying to get on and subsequently off the ramps of the ferry.

Morag and John were staying with relations in Manchester, they offered me a room but I elected to bite the bullet and go all the way home to my wife and my bed.

So after doing almost exactly 1400 miles (.4 of a mile short) I was home. Would I do it again, most definitely, although the weather played a very important part in this trip. It was the warmest summer Ireland has had in 30 years, I’m told.

We have already started talking about doing the northern half of the WAW. Both John and Morag are also talking about getting different bikes, mainly after seeing how comfortable I was with the trip, whilst Johns spine was jarred enough to want to leave him on the more bumpy roads and Morag’s bike being so heavy and also vibrated enough to give her white finger on more than a few occasions.

The photos I have included in the above were taken from my mobile, so, sorry if the quality isn’t great, but hopefully they will give you an idea of just how beautiful the west coast of Ireland is, when its not raining

Tags: Cork, Croagh Patrick, Dave Danieals, Dingle, Galway, Ireland west coast, Killarney, Kinsale, Ring or Kerry, wild atlantic coast road