July 7, 2015
Ballyrissode to Kilcrohane
Woke up to hot sun, the kind of heat that means that you have to get up immediately, before you roast, we jumped straight in the sea to cool down. How good is camping in Ireland when the sun shines? Had breakfast, and a really nice chat with a guy whose family had a holiday home there for almost 40 years. Packed up a dry tent, luxury! Goleen next, sat out in the sun drinking coffee and eating toast, there is a good local visitor centre there and we bought a really nice map of the WAW, in booklet form with fold out pages it fitted easily in the bar bag and turned out to be a great buy.
There are 5 big peninsulas sticking out from the SW corner of Ireland, like 5 fingers, we were now well out the first one making for Mizen Head the most southwesterly point in Ireland. These peninsulas are very rugged, long and narrow, with a spine of mountains running down to a very unforgiving rocky Atlantic shore. Living conditions here were harsh with families eking out a living from small scale fishing and growing potatoes, for anyone interested in Irish history ‘The Atlas of the Irish Famine’ from Cork University Press is an amazing description of how the famine affected individual locations, the depth of human suffering described makes it a difficult read.
We followed the R591, hugging the coast, another spectacular cycling route round to Crookhaven, again popular with sailors due to the sheltered harbour. Crookhaven is a dead end so we backtracked out passing Barleycove, one of the best beaches in Ireland on the way to Mizen. Mizen Head was a bit of let down, a signature point on the WAW, there was a visitor centre there, full of tourist tat, very busy, there is a nice walk across a bridge to the lighthouse. Given the crowds we decided to give it a miss, the wind was getting up and clouds were gathering so we left. A very fast spin back to Barleycove, downhill with a strong tail wind, we then caught a heavy shower on our climb over the pass to the northern side of the peninsula, it was very exposed with no shelter so we kept going.
Skies cleared as we came over the top and we were rewarded with a fantastic 10kms downhill with a fresh tail wind. High over the sea, cruising at 30 km/h, we reached Durrus all too soon. Durrus is famous, to us anyhow, as the home of Durrus Cheese, a washed rind cows milk cheese made by local cheese maker Jeffa Gill, one of the best cheeses in Ireland. We stocked up on cheese and local bread, turned into the wind making for Sheeps head. Funny how you never appreciate how strong the wind is when it’s behind you, our kindly following breeze had now transformed into a full blown gale, channeled up between the mountains on each penninsula, making progress very slow. Somewhat demoralized, we stopped on a fishing pier just outside Durrus, made tea and reduced the load of bread and cheese that we were carrying. While we were at the pier the crew of a local fishing boat arrived, they loaded on a lot of food, they must have been going out for a few days. Watching them set off into a force 6 gale, we were struck by how tough a fisherman’s life was.
The wind was cold so we rugged up, feeling a lot warmer with food and jackets we followed the L4704 via Ahakista to Kilcrohane, this is yet another road that hugs the sea, I’m certain that it is spectacular but we were heads down trying to make progress, there was some relief around Akahista as the road becomes sheltered for a while, the Gulf Stream is very evident here in this sheltered bay with palms growing along the shore.
Outside Akahista we stopped at the Air India disaster memorial, Air India flight 182 operated the Montreal-London-Delhi route, on 23rd of June, 1985, the plane, a Boeing 747, was destroyed by a bomb off the west coast of Ireland and all 329 people on board, mainly Canadian,were killed. The focal point of the garden is a sculpture of a sun dial, the sun hits the dial at 08.00 the time the tragedy occurred. It was a sobering few minutes reflecting on the loss and the absolute futility of it all.
Weather worsening we arrived in Kilcrohane, no obvious camping spot, we decided to head on for Sheeps Head lighthouse, I don’t know how our reasoning was working that evening, when we though that we might find a camping spot on one of the most exposed spots in Ireland during a storm. Anyhow we struggled out, driving rain, howling wind, up hill, the road twisted through rocky outcrops and small lakes, anywhere that was flat was too boggy to camp in. When we got over the brow of the hill and arrived at the visitor centre it was late evening, the 10kms from Kilcorhane had taken almost two hours. The place was deserted and the wind was so strong that we could hardly stand up in it. We had a quick scout around but there was nowhere sheltered to put up a tent, no option only to retreat. The spin back to Kilcrohane took 20mins, we didn’t have to turn the pedals, just got blasted back. Now getting dark, cold and wet, we found a spot on the side of the road to the pier, not ideal, beggars not being choosers, we grabbed it. We were too tired to cook dinner so we had tea and a pack of Belgian waffles instead. The camping spot turned out to be better than it looked, flat and very sheltered by a thick hedge we had a great nights sleep. The road was really quiet and only one or two cars passed.
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Today's ride: 98 km (61 miles)
Total: 630 km (391 miles)
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I'm enjoying you account of the tour. Its a route I hope to do myself someday. Ireland is so pretty when the sun comes oout!
Cheers,
Keith
5 years ago