Day 85
Goat Island
As we slept away our disappointment, warm and cosy in our B&B, a clearly very drunk and noisy fellow guest returned. Awake we listened to him crashing around. Suddenly our bedroom door flew open and in walked a semi naked man! We encouraged him to leave ASAP, and he staggered away without a word. I knew Steve B wasn’t in the Republic so guessed it was just a drunken Irish man!
In the morning at breakfast I did wonder if one of the early risers was our midnight visitor, but decided he would probably still be sleeping!
Today was about covering the miles. We had decided to cover three days ridding in two days. The weather forecast was for very wet days, and it was certainly accurate. Tom had planned a 55-miler, as flat as possible, and on quiet roads. We simply just got on with it. We stopped for lunch somewhere wet. We rode along many wet roads, more river than road at times. Tom stopped to look at a memorial, no photos as it was too wet. We had a two or three mile section on a busy road, somewhere wet. The rain had clearly given us a cloak of invisibility, car after car failing to give us enough room. I finally snapped, one car driver who thought he had the ability to see round a blind bend but didn’t tried to pass me. He slammed all on and swerved into my line. I screamed so loud in fear and anger that Tom thought it was a police siren. The car managed to pull clear. Every driver for miles around must have heard me and gave the mad woman on a bike a wide berth. We carried on, in the rain.
After about 35 miles or so, Tom said its stopped raining, I hadn’t noticed. The sun didn’t come out, but we stopped getting wetter and we realized we would soon be at our wild camp. 20 miles later we arrived at Goat Island. A stunning spot near Ardmore, somewhere between Cork and Waterford. Tomorrow will be wet but at least our last wildcamp in Ireland is dry tonight. I’ll take that. More pictures of Goat Island tomorrow.
