We carried on and after a fairly boring ride the rain became so bad that we gave up and decided to stop at the nearest B&B which happened to be in Bangor Eris.
Now, I've never come across a village so quiet. There were a couple of shops and a takeaway which server fish and chips and fried chicken. Nowhere accepted card payments including the B&B and the nearest cash point was in the next village along. Not bad you say. It is when the next village is 12 miles away!
Luckily, I had a bit of cash left on me and we were able to just about afford a dinner of chicken and chips! Seeing as there was nothing else to do around, we had our first early night of the holiday!
We woke up refreshed and after a quick blast on my own to get cash to pay for the B&B we made tracks to head down towards Galway.
On the way down, the lonely planet guide recommended a trip along the Atlantic Drive towards Mount Slievmore which sounded great as there was an abandoned village there that we would have liked to have seen left from the famine. Unfortunately the road was so battered that it seemed too risky to travel down especially with the sheep that littered the road and scattered in every direction at the sound of the motorbike!
We carried on following the N59 and ended up at the Connemara National Park. As soon as we entered, we realised that we were in an area with spectacular scenery with mountains all around. I found a sign that indicated the Connemara loop going along the R344 and followed that down back to the R59. The scenery was amazing and along this road we hit our 1000th mile!
Zoom in and you can see the mileage - 999.9!
Off we carried on stopping in Galway for lunch. I was aiming to push on to Limerick to try and squeeze in a quick look at the Cliffs Of Moher. It was apparent though that it was still going to be quite a long ride to Limerick and after failing to book a hotel room, decided to see if I could find one as close to the Cliffs as possible. A small town called Lisdoonvarna appeared on the map as the closest town so a quick look on tripadvisor and I booked us in at Sheedy's Country House Hotel. Being our last night in Ireland, I really wanted to get down to see these iconic cliffs and we eventually arrived in Lisdoonvarna at around 4pm. The roads were obviously getting better!
As Lisdoonvarna appeared before the cliffs, we stopped to unload our luggage and jumped back on the bike to go see the cliffs. In their own right, the cliffs were impressive but I think that it was spoiled a little by the fact that you can see very similar sights in Wales without being ripped off by the local council charging 6 euro's each just to park the bike up. We spent a short amount of time there taking the obligatory tourist photo's and made our way back to the town for some dinner.
Sheedy's had a lovely menu but unfortunately, due to my fussy palate, we didn't actually like anything on the menu although it did all smell great. Instead, we opted to go to a pub round the corner where we had yet more chicken and chips! Looking around the bar, there were signs for live music later in the evening. As we didn't have much cash and I'd had a drink, we opted to leave a card behind the bar and come back later.
After dessert back at the hotel and another pint of guinness we made our way back to the pub which was now filling up. Whilst ordering our drinks, I got chatting to a man named John who kindly pulled up a stool for Nikki and myself. Well for those that know me, I will talk to anyone and after a couple of pints, he'd introduced me to others at the bar and soon we were all laughing and joking. The pub filled up with even more people and I've got to say that it was the best night out I've had in a very very long time. I don't think I've ever been to a pub where everyone was so friendly and happy to talk to everyone else and for this reason and near enough not much else, I will probably try and get back to Ireland sooner than I had anticipated up to that point.
John, I know I gave you my email address in my drunken state and if you are reading this, it would be great to hear from you!
Just a little plug for the hotel we stayed at too Sheedy's Country House Hotel.
The room was the best value that we had all weekend and the breakfast was fantastic. The owners were friendly and always helpful and they're very charming children. The daughter who kindly led her mum to show us our room but ran away without a care in the world when it came to boring things like food and their son, who called from reception across the baby intercom to advise that "SOMEONE IS HERE FOR YOUUUU!". I love the fact that this place was family run and you could see that a lot of care had been put in to making it a lovely place to stay. We'll definitely be back if we're in that part of the world again!
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