Kilmore Quay to Fethard on the Sea

June 3, 2025

Last night we arrived at our lodgings, Libgate B and B, about 4:30 pm. It was outside the village of Kilmore Quay (as Dave said, in the middle of nowhere). I was relieved our host Angela was expecting us and greeted us accordingly, as I had made the reservation a long time ago. The B and B doesn't advertise in the traditional way and the communications were minimal and by text. As we found out later, our host and her husband are German and only relocated to Ireland in 2021 after Covid.

Our digs were in line with what we expected for 90 euros per night, breakfast excluded (that was 14 euros per person). You felt like you were staying at your elderly aunt’s or grandma’s place. Perfectly functional and clean, just a bit kitschy for our taste. If I reported Angela had an impressive teapot collection, you probably get the idea!

Tight but secure quarters for our bikes.

We knew it was both Monday and a bank holiday so were a little worried about finding a place to eat supper. Angela kindly called around and booked a table at the local pub, 1 km down in the village. We had an hour to clean up and unpack and then rode down to the village. The weather was blustery enough that it nixed any desire to explore except for this one shot of an impressive thatched roof building. Kilmore Quay is known for its thatched roofs.

We had our first Guinness and our first pub meal and both were worthy. The waitress was all apologietic. She had reserved a good table for us but there was a mixup in the reservation. Would we like to wait until a good table opened up? Honestly, the tables didn’t look a whole lot different from each other, and we were not feeling fussy. We gladly ordered a Guinness (Dave a pint, Jill a glass), had a seat at an apparently lesser table and regarded our surroundings. Eventually she called us over to what we assumed was a "better" table and we had an excellent meal from a pretty original menu. Our starter was prawns and other bits of seafood in a sauce of Njuda butter and a crispy duck noodle stir fry. Not at all the anticipated burger and fries or fish and chips. Welcome to Ireland.

A very good Duck noodle stir fry and they served wine in quarter bottles - helpful at minimizing alcohol consumption.

Back at our lodgings we had asked for breakfast at 9 am and we both slept well and woke early enough to enjoy a cup of tea/coffee before breakfast. We were excited to be in a new country cycling on a new adventure. Breakfast was pretty stellar: it was not the “full Irish” but fresh scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, cheese, bread and raw tomatoes and cucumbers served on the table.

Angela also brought out plastic sandwich bags and encouraged us to take leftovers for lunch which was awesome because it avoided the usual stealth sandwich-making we sometimes engage in! I worked on the journal and Angela came over and visited about their purchase of the house. They bought it in July 2021 without looking at it in person (Covid was in full swing) and mentioned that her husband maintains a business in Europe and is gone a lot. She likes running the B and B because it’s company for her. Most of her business comes from other Germans that travel to Ireland.

We got on the road about 11 am (aiming unsuccessfully for 10:30 am) and it was very windy with dark clouds. Dave said we should just accept the fact that it is going to be windy and to try not to dwell on it. The wind made it hard to hear anything so I did not hear cars coming up behind me the whole day. Added to that we are now riding on the left so my trusty side mirror on the left does me little good. Dave kitted me out this morning with a rearview mirror on my glasses but I can’t say I have got the hang of it yet. Honestly, it’s just another thing to fuss with - among a plethora of things we already fuss over.

We were dressed for the cold but since the forecast did not call for rain, I didn’t put on my rain pants. This turned out to be a mistake because 15 km into the ride it went from super windy to a good dose of pouring rain. Dave wisely pulled over at a hedge. We were not completely under cover but the hedge along with the over hanging branches of a tree helped protect us from a good bit of the rain. I quickly donned rain pants and we both put on our rain booties. It was the first time on this tour to have to do this and it’s hard to pull that stuff on if you don’t have a bench (and its raining to boot) but we managed.

Naturally, just as we got underway again, the rain stopped. It spit a bit a few more times but that was it. Later we said to each other we were glad it rained. It just reminded us that we can handle it.

The ride was very agricultural with a mix of solid affluent-looking houses in open country with lots of hedge rows, which actually mitigate the wind but of course, also makes for poor site distance for drivers and cyclists alike.

Because of the rain, I suggested we stop in Wellington Bridge for coffee. I was a bit damp under my rain pants. It being Tuesday everything was closed except the local grocery store which fortunately had a modest coffee shop attached to it. We ordered a coffee/latte/bag of weird Cheetos-type snack and appreciated warming up in a decent environment. A small pleasure.

The traffic situation wasn’t quite as bucolic as yesterday. There was a lot more traffic and the lanes are narrow and the cars move fast and pass closely. We pulled over when we could, probably a half a dozen times, to allow vehicles to pass. The route moved in and out of busy roads and then quiet roads. We passed and rode along Bannow Bay, an oyster Mecca, which is also where the Normans first landed in 1169. (See yesterday’s post).

To be clear, this is not a Norman relic. 😉

At km point 41 we came to Tintern Abbey, a ruined Cistercian monastery now an Irish Heritage site. We rode through the Tintern woodlands and stopped at the Abbey briefly - it was very scenic. Tintern Abbey was founded in 1200 by William, Earl Marshall, who married an Irish heiress, Isabella de Clare, and built the Abbey on her family's lands. It was named after the famous Tintern Abbey in Wales which, coincidentally, we expect to visit in August, if all goes as planned.

Right after that, we got our gravel fix for the day for a couple of km and then sat down at a bench at a scenic point by a stream, under the trees and had our excellent small sandwich. It started raining again but the trees protected us enough to enjoy it and we had a “why we tour” moment of happiness.

William Marshal and Isabel de Claire. Theirs was a true love story which lasted for decades and together, they consolidated Norman power in the area. William was reputed to be the finest knight of his age. Or so the legends go….

We arrived in Fethard by the Sea around 3:30. It's a small village about 5 km from the ocean and it’s pretty much a one-street village, with about five places to have dinner but since it was Tuesday - everything was closed but one lone café.

We had a bit of drama getting checked in. Nobody was at our inn, the Baginbun Lodge, and it was locked, but there was a sign on the door to call Jane. Of course, we had the usual fussing around figuring out how to call an Irish number - it took us three tries - but Dave finally got through to Jane and she was expecting us but asked if we didn’t we get the text about how to get in? We hadn’t checked our emails/texts/whatever and she duly gave us the door code to get in and there was an envelope on the front desk with our room key and some information about the place. Cool. Jane told us to park our bikes on the back deck which took a bit of reconnoitering to avoid a flight of steps: go the long way around the inn, squeeze past the barrier to the car park, open a gate, move a planter blocking entrance to the special smoking area , open another gate and then pull the bikes onto the deck. I have noticed bike touring teaches one patience.

We eventually got our bikes into the bike parking area

We got the bikes situated and hauled our panniers up the one flight of stairs to our room and then the fun began to get into our room, Room 6. We had a key fob that you waive in front of the door lock. I arrived first as Dave was downstairs working on the bikes, and I had no luck getting in. This isn’t surprising as I am a klutz with keys and in Europe there is an endless variation in keys and locks. Fortunately Dave is handy and not intimidated by European key and lock variety. He couldn’t get it to work either and after trying unsuccessfully to waive the fob and open the door a few times the system just locked us out (like when you try a password too many times on a computer). So, we resorted to calling Jane again and there transpired one of those hilarious conversations one has traveling, in which she is patiently walking us through the details of opening the door, waiting for the door lock to reset etc, etc. Nothing worked, and we were envisioning that she was going to have to drive out from wherever she was to help. Finally she asked which door we were standing in front of. Room 6, we said. What key do you have? We looked: Oops, our key actually said 9, as I had read it up side down by mistake! She waited while we walked down the hall to Room 9 and voilá, the door opened like a charm. At last.

(As an aside, this episode, humorous though it was, is why I shy away from renting apartments or rooms with absentee landlords. We are always tired when we arrive and don’t have the extra brain power to deal with lockboxes/door codes etc . But this was advertised as in inn and we would have had no way of knowimg we would need a door code to get in or a need to check our emails while riding. Okay, okay first world problems.

The room was small but fine.

We took our time cleaning up and Dave went out to find a take out beer. It was slim pickings although he asked at several places, and he finally resorted to having one in the pub across the street. He was the only customer in there at 4 pm. The pub only served beer, no food, and the only beer was Guinness.

We ate supper that evening at the Wheelhouse Cafe, which specializes in breakfast, lunch, dinner, fishing tackle and garden supplies. But when we arrived at 6:30 we got the last table. When you are the only establishment open you get a lot of business. The café served wine but no beer, and we wonder if it’s an alcohol restriction in Ireland (to support the pubs maybe?) We had a perfectly serviceable dinner of chicken curry (Dave) and duck salad (Jill) and a bottle of merlot. We didn’t finish the bottle and asked if we could take it back to our lodge. The waitress us assured us this was okay so we sauntered down the street with an open bottle, the cork being long gone. When in Rome…..

We are now hooked on the Netflix show Dept. Q and Dave successfully found the HDMI port to allow casting with our VPN so we could watch two episodes. There is no bike racing to keep us occupied until the Dauphiné this weekend.

Drama ensued at the end of the evening however. While reaching for something on the bathroom counter I accidentally knocked Dave’s hearing aid charger into the toilet. I grabbed it immediately and wiped it down but then he rushed over and gave it a quick rinse to get water off. We then spent the next hour messing around with the charger, drying it out with the hair drier, paper towels, etc to no avail. It was a goner. Then I started looking up hearing aid places in Ireland. As of the following morning when I write this, the charger appears to be dead and the Waterford Hidden Hearing Aid store is now on our list of tasks for this afternoon. Sigh.

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 1,103 km (685 miles)

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