And they’re off! - Ireland’s Windy, wet and wonderful, Wild Atlantic Way. - CycleBlaze

June 29, 2015

And they’re off!

Kindof!!

After spending the weekend with my mum and some of my family, just outside Wexford town, it was time to go.  Yet we couldn’t seem to get going, lots of running around packing, little jobs that I thought would take half an hour seemed to take all day.  I had to connect a B&M charging setup to the Son 28, basically connect two cables, no problem? Unless you spend a few hours trying to track down a non-standard spade fitting.  You get the picture, finally at about 4pm we set off. My mother laughing as we wobbled off, I think she expected us to arrive back before night fall.  Our first destination was our old friends Patsy and Philip who lived on the Hook pensiula, 40 Kms away.  Used to cruising around unladen at 20Kms/hour I was confident that we’d make it easily in 2.5 hours.  The road from Wexford to Duncannon is an old military road built in the 1800s to allow British troops to travel directly from the garrison in Wexford to Duncannon fort which guarded the entry to the strategic port of Waterford.  It’s as straight as an arrow, and whilst it seems almost flat from a car its all up and down when you’re cycling. Nothing too steep but long, energy sapping hills.  Drivers were courteous giving us lots of room and the views of South Wexford from the road were great, whilst threatening clouds on the horizon spurred us on. We stopped at Wellingtonbridge for cup of tea,  this is where the flask comes into its own, instead of having to open panniers, root out a stove, set it up, boil water, make tea and then reverse the whole process, just whip off the flask, and grab teabags and milk from the top of the front pannier, making tea a 10 minute stop.  Wellingtonbridge is an interesting spot historically, it was port in earlier times but silting eventually finished it off, the remains of some of the earlier settlements can be seen from the road.  

We were starting to struggle a bit at this stage, saddle sore, grumpy, not helped by heavy rain which quickly soaked us.  I was starting to question the wisdom of a 6 week bike trip, given that an easy spin was so tough. We were really happy to eventually arrive at Patsy and Philips, where hot showers, good food (professional cooks) and brilliant company soon restored our mojo.

Unloading the van
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A lot of stuff to fit in Panniers,
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Will it ever fit?
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Finally ready for off
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Thats a lot of bags, front panniers to go on still
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Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 40 km (25 miles)

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