Friday 31st. May19
The morning dawned dry with the sun breaking through, we all set off together to ride the mountain road to Devils Bridge as Fred hadn’t seen it. At Devils Bridge we parted company, Jon & Pete heading back home via the A44; Fred, Kev and I rode the back way to Aberystwyth which is nice and twisty toad with great views. From Aberystwyth we took the coast road down to Fishguard to catch our ferry to Rosslare in Ireland. We arrived in plenty of time and they boarded the bikes first; we installed ourselves in the bar for the 3hr 15min crossing.
Thankfully the crossing was smooth and we were soon off the boat and heading for our hotel at Youghal, a 2hr 30 ride on the coast near Cork. Very soon we noticed that cars and trucks will pull over to let bikers past.. the English could certainly learn something from the Irish 😁
Straight into the bar when we arrived for our first beer of the evening 👍That night we ate at A Hearns, a top seafood restaurant recommended by my friend Mick. I was tempted by the lobster 🦞Mmmm washed down with a nice glass of white wine.. don’t ask how much!! Back at the hotel bar we had a couple of glasses of 12yr old Irish whisky before bed 😋. So a bit of a blow out on the first night in Ireland.. bread and dripping tomorrow night! 🤪
One of Ireland’s best fish restaurants 
Very naughty 
Mmmmmm
Saturday 1st. June19
In the morning it was raining when we started out to ride around Cork and find the start of the Wild Atlantic Way. After an hour or so the rain eased off and we came upon a sign telling us we had found it 👍
As usual my Garmin route took us down some very narrow, twisty lanes..then it found the ones with grass growing down the middle and finally to make things even better we found the mud! 😱We pulled over for a comfort break and Fred had a rant..he hated his bike, the riding position was hurting his neck and his leg was hurting 🙄to be fair that bike is not made for tight twisty naggery roads like these. As Fred put it “this bike is made for a 20yr old, not a 64yr old guy like me” 🤣Kevin dispensed some Ibuprofen and I programmed the Garmin to avoid the small roads and we set off on a direct route to Bantry bay. We parked up and found a pub to have some lunch; Fred had cheered up a bit by now.
From there we picked up the Wild Atlantic Way to Kenmare, our destination for the night. The road was good right along the coast and very picturesque with white topped waves. We passed through an area where there were masses of large wild purple Rhododendron bushes lining each side of the road for mile upon mile, really pretty; never seen anything like that before!
The Wild Atlantic 
We arrived at Kenmare, a small town, basically 2 streets with around 10 pubs 😊. The hotel was a B&B in a large house in its own grounds; the landlady asked us if we would like to have “the cottage”. Turned out to be a detached cottage with 2 bedrooms and a kitchen; would be great for a self catering family. We were very happy until we realised there was no bar at this place; so Kevin ride into town and got us a six pack 👍
It had started to rain so after a shower we got a taxi the short distance to town. Dinner was simple bangers & mash; seemed the right thing to do after the lobster indulgence the night before! It was Saturday night and all the pubs had live music starting at 9.30. Shortly after our guy started singing a hen party of about 20 girls came in; they were in party mood for sure and started dancing in front of us. We soon got talking to a couple and before I knew it I was being dragged up to dance and even had a boogie with the bride.. all good fun. We decided it was time to try the pub across the street; more music and more beer/ Jamesons whisky, then into another over the road.. who did we bump into but the hen party again in full swing.. more dancing 🤪. Finally we called it a night and went to bed hoping the rain would have stopped by morning!
Tomorrow we head for Killarney, the famous Ring of Kerry and will visit Bikefest, the largest biking festival in Ireland.. should be fun 😎