You give me €4, then I give each of you €1 back to put in the bin!

The church was locked up. Google had indicated that a pyramid shaped tomb was that of the General but we had our doubts. There were no markings on it whatsoever, save for a coat of arms. Biggsey went off in search of a rectory, there was an adjacent house. Shortly, he called us over and a young lad had let him into the church. On the wall were plaques commemorating the old boy but sadly, they indicated this was not his last resting place. That was in a place called Corofin, some 10-15 miles north west and in the opposite direction to that we were headed. That's an excuse for Biggsey to return one day in the future.

We left Ennis and made our way south to Bunratty Castle and Durty Nelly's pub. The former we would photograph from the roadside, the latter would be our lunch stop. Dating from the 17th Century, it was all low beams, uneven floors and crooked walls. We settled on four seafood chowdas, with home made bread. It was deeelish! I just about had room to squeeze it in on top of the brekkie!




They do a mean seafood chowda

The sun was still shining when we left Bunratty. Boy, had we been lucky with the weather, pretty much since leaving Inverness. Next on the agenda, another fuel stop and then the trek down to Blarney, including a trip through the Limerick Tunnel (under the River Shannon).

Well, guess what. Pass stop, move directly to toll, do not collect any fuel! The fuel stop had closed down (it's on street view, honest). Grizzly took the lead. Being a Cork man, he was keen to lead us into his own county, similar to the French letting riders lead into their home towns during the Tour de France. We duly arrive at the tunnel toll booths (can you believe they make bikers pay?). A long discussion ensues, before we each are given a €1 to put into the bin, to raise the barrier, despite Grizzly having just handed the €4 over to the guy in the kiosk. Logic, (in Ireland, feck off!) would say you pay the man for four bikes and he presses the button to raise the barrier four times. Simples!  Too simple, it seems for the paddy at the toll. "You have to put de muney in de bin". Sad but no word of a lie.

Through the tunnel, we did eventually make the fuel stop, then it was just a short ride down to the village of Blarney. Our hotel for the night, situated on the village green, was the appropriately named Blarney Castle Hotel. The entrance to the castle grounds is just 2 minutes walk away.

With the bikes securely parked up at the back of the hotel, we freshened up, before heading out to the Castle. I'd come 1500 miles to kiss the Blarney Stone and by gum that's exactly what I intended to do.

Blarney Castle Hotel

Blood relatives

Another bright sunny day greets us in Athlone, along with a sumptuous 4* breakfast buffet. Not wishing to appear greedy, I only have the four rashers of bacon....along with the two sausages, scrambled & fried egg, mushrooms, beans, hash browns, black and white pudding, toast and a couple of tiny danish pastries! Shucks, I forgot the juice and coffee!

Suitably fuelled up our first stop is just round the corner, to fuel up the bikes once again. I had based our fuel stops on Dudley's baby bottle sized tank. He reckoned he could get about 150 miles out of it, so playing safe I built the fuel stops in for around 120. We weren't using fuel at the rate we thought though, so some of these stops were more like a Formula One, splash and dash, that a full fill up.

Second stop, was Lough Rea (pronounced Ray). Another one to add to our list, we stopped to take some photos and have a coffee. Least Biggsey and Dudley had a coffee. With half of the Radisson Blu's breakfast buffet inside me, there wasn't room for anything else, so Grizzly and I took the photos.

Lough Rea

Over breakfast we had been discussing Biggsey's ancestry. Apparently, he is related (great, great, grandson or something) to an old war hero, General Sir Bindon Blood and it turned out that he was buried (or so we thought) in a little town called Ennis. Fascinated by this, we decided, in the sake of research, to abandon the planned visit to Galway Bay and instead stop in Ennis to find the good General. We were passing through it anyway. A bit of Googleing and we had his location mapped into Tomtom. So, our stop after Lough Rea, was St Columba's Church, Ennis.

We parked up in Bindon Street, right outside the church and set off in search of the General's last resting place.

I normally charge for these!

I had a taste for pizza but the town didn't appear to have any of the regular pizza houses....bloomin' foreigners! Eventually we spied an Indian restaurant across the river. We'll give that a go. On our way round though, we clapped eyes on Pavarotti's Pizza, so in we went. A small place, there was just the chef and one waitress. 3 pizzas and one pasta, washed down with Peroni later and we were ready to check out Sean's bar, allegedly the oldest pub in Ireland. Small, dark and with sawdust on the floors, the place was heaving. We managed to squeeze down near the back, fortunately (?) where 3 attractive young ladies were loitering by the bar. Grizzly, Dudley and myself sat down, Biggsey, unusually when tottie is in sight, hung back and stood against the wall. 

It soon became apparent there was a chap with these girls. He seemed quite full of himself, a celeb I thought, gay Dudley thought, just a fat walleted gobshite, Grizzly thought. Biggsey had disappeared without a word. We thought he mustn't be liking the atmosphere and had decided to go back to the hotel. Never mind.

Anyway, Grizzly, as is his wont, starts taking photos of the girls. Then says he wants to take one of the guy. "Sure but I normally charge for these", he says. Quick as a flash (this bloke is annoying me) I say, "so does he, he's Biggsey's official photographer". Even quicker than a flash, the guy turns away, his nose well and truly put out of joint. Meanwhile I explain to one of the girls, looking quizzically at me, that Biggsey is an author. She claims to have heard of him. Yeah, right! And with that the four of them leave.

Not sure what he plans to do with that tongue!

Their place is taken by three, shall we say, more mature ladies, with whom we instantly strike up a conversation. All three are keen to hear the tale of our tour and even seem somewhat disappointed we don't have room (I do) on the back of our bikes! We run through the now slick routine of me being Biggsey's agent, etc. It turns out that one of the women owns a book shop! Just our luck, when Biggsey has done a runner, we could have offloaded another one of his cards. Oh well. Pat takes his usual plethora of photos and even finds a minute to get in front of the camera, then it's time for us to leave.

As we walk out of the pub, blow me if Biggsey isn't sitting at a table chatting to some bloke. Seems they had both been entertained by a punch up in the bar over the road, chairs and all sorts flying in the road and stopping the traffic. I explain to Biggsey about the book shop lady (not sure he believed me at first) and take one of his cards back in to her. Kerching!, that'll be another sale. As Grizzly pointed out, on this trip we must've sold more books than Amazon! 

With that, it was back to the hotel. Another day done and now just two more left together. Where has the time gone?

Biggsey's Official Photographer and friend

My first Guinness in 35 years!

Our overnighter in Athlone, was a touch of luxury, The Radisson Blu. We rode around the end of the barrier to the car park and found ourselves some spaces! Anyone wanna argue with The Hogs?

As one would expect, the hotel was very posh. The young lady checking us in was very pleasant and more than happy to let me babble on about being Biggsey's agent and him being an author. Not sure she believed us, she probably meets all sorts in her job. As the others joined us at the desk we gave them their key cards and then all made our way to the third floor. I was sleeping with Biggsey tonight.

If truth be told, the room, though very nice, was a little on the snug side. The view though, could not be faulted, overlooking the River Shannon. There were cruisers moored up. Now that's a way to arrive!

  
For days and days talk had been about the Guinness in Ireland. People always say how much better it is over there. As the last time I had Guinness was in 1977, a pint I absolutely hated, I recall, I wasn't keen to check the theory out. Grizzly, however, insisted that when we got to Athlone, I HAD to try a pint. Oh, what the hell, he was buying. And so I took my first sip of Guinness since the 27th February 1977. And, it was a very decent pint.

Mmm, not bad.

That little test over with we ventured out to find something to eat.

Next stop, The Republic

Our next stop would be our lunch stop and this would be in our fifth country, The Republic of Ireland. The border crossing was barely noticeable, certainly no soldiers sporting armalite rifles, which I dare say was the case before the peace agreement came into force. Instead, just a sign saying we were entering whichever county it was (Co, Monahan I think) and the change from mph to kph on the speed limit road signs.

Lunch would be at Subway, in Monahan. Oh no it wouldn't. That had obviously closed since the street view car had been around but luckily the cafe I'd also spotted on street view,  was still in business and so were we. The Hogs gave me some stick about the Subway. It seems they had been gearing themselves up for BMT or something. Me too, if truth be told.

Well lads, check this link out!!

http://goo.gl/maps/7S0xk

Fed and watered, we carried on our way. There were no sightseeing stops planned for this part of the journey, we'd done the Causeway and Lough Neagh, so now we were just mile crunching to get to our next coffee stop at Granard. Another street view target and another blow out, the bar and coffee house, now something totally different, so we rode on through.

 A little way down the road, there was a petrol station and it had a coffee machine, so the Hogs were happy once again. The young lad behind the counter was wearing an Arsenal shirt, not the first I'd seen. I questioned why he was serving a kid wearing a Chelsea shirt, though I think the point was lost on him.

Soon back in the saddle, we were heading for our second lough of the day, our first in the Republic though, Lough Ree. The bit we were visiting was just a small offshoot at the south eastern tip. Thankfully, another street view location, a car park at the water's edge, actually existed. It was on a slope and very gravelly, so we had to be careful turning the bikes around and all watched anxiously as Dudley duck walked his Harley to face the way out. No mishaps this time though.

We took some photos and chatted with a couple who'd driven in to the car park. They were interested to know what we were up to. Biggsey duly produced his card again, as he explained how we'd met on Route 66.

The sun was still shining, glinting off the water's surface as we rode away on our short trip down to Athlone. What a brilliant day, despite no Subway!

Party Time on Lough Ree

Would you be after having any cash?

Day 8 started with the sun shining once again. We had been so lucky thus far, only having the one full rainy day, back in Scotland.

A quick 15 minute blast down the road saw us parked up at The Giant's Causeway. Similar to the rope bridge, there is a fair walk down the cliff path to the causeway itself. This isn't so noticeable, as you have the distraction of the audio guide as you make your way down. It really is quite remarkable, I expect you've seen it on TV but seeing these hundreds, thousands even, of hexagonal stone columns up close leaves you quite amazed at the forces that shape our world.

Grizzly wasn't about to entertain the return trip up the hill on foot. Lucky for him then, that there is a shuttle bus, so we all jumped on board for the short but steep ride back to the visitor centre. Back on the road, we headed for Lough Neagh, the big splash of blue on the Northern Irish map. This is a huge lough but we only just touched the west bank at Ballyronan. To our dismay, the recreation area and car park was devoid of any refreshment place. Strange, you would think they'd have a kiosk or something for drinks and ice creams, they had beach! The beach, as we were to witness quite bizarrely, was man made (see the photo). We stayed a short while, took some photos and then hit the road again to our next fuel stop.

Either it's shallow or Jesus now operates a digger for a living!

The fuel stop, well! This was a little place in the middle of the terrace of shops and hoses, with just two pumps. Standing on the forecourt recording what fuel you had used and how much it cost, on a piece of paper, was an elderlyish woman. As I hung up the pump, she shouted to an elderlyish gentleman in the office how much to charge. As usual, I reached for my credit card. The woman ushered past me telling the man that the machine didn't work. He clearly wasn't aware of this fact, as he'd already stuck the card in the machine. "I can give you cash" I said. The man then opened a wooden 'desk' lid, similar to a school desk, retrieved my change and the transaction was completed. No fancy tills here! Now wise to the fact the machine was broken, when Biggsey entered the office to pay, he was met with the question, "Would you be after having any cash?". Well it was a very small town. Made us chuckle though.

OMG!

We left the ferry port at Belfast and quickly stopped to fuel up, slightly perturbed by the chap smoking on the forecourt!

Navigating through the Belfast suburbs, we were soon joining the coast road. Boy, what a stretch of road this is. We were blessed that the weather was dry and sunny, giving me, not sure about the others, the chance to do the road justice. The road surface was very good. The nature of the road itself, just fantastic, as it hugs the coast, sharing every twist and turn of this craggy but very beautiful coastline. Some long sweeping open bends around the bay, to tight twisty bits high up on the cliff face, make this a must do ride for any biker. I loved it.

All too soon though the magic was over and we arrived in Ballintoy, The Fullerton Arms welcoming us with it's large car park. Inside a young lad showed us to our rooms. These were very large with plenty of floor space for all our gear. I was sleeping with Grizzly again tonight, separate beds mind, even though I had a double. The room, in fact the whole upper floor, was roasting hot. It was as if they had been taken by surprise with the lovely weather. And lovely it was.

A quick wash (Jesus that water was hot) and we were off up the road to the Carrick-a Rede rope bridge. Only about 800m away, we had a gentle uphill stroll to get to the pay booths but it then at least another 1km to the bridge itself, along the cliff path. A sign said there was a 15 minute wait to cross the bridge. In the event we waited no more than 5, before stepping onto the 10m rope and plank crossing, swaying as we walked above the 35m drop to the sea and rocks below. There's little see or do the other side, except watch the seabirds, Fulmars in this case, and take a few scenic photos, so we weren't long before we were in the queue to cross back. A refreshing pint beckoned! As we crossed back over, Biggsey and I proved just how tough bikers are, by walking across without holding the hand ropes. COME ON!

After a swift pint back at The Fullerton and a feeble attempt to chat up some American women (what is it about Biggsey and yanks?) we mosied across the road to the Carrick-a Rede Restaurant for dinner. Back in The Fullerton there was a rematch of the Ireland v England darts match. This time though, I'm afraid, the paddy got the better of me. Then it was time for bed. It had been a very long day. I attempted to update the blog before my eyelids got too heavy. I thought I'd succeeded but strangely that never got published. 

The Fullerton Arms, Ballintoy

Dudley on the rope bridge