Sad to go really as we'd had so much fun, yet exciting at the same time (felt like a kid all of a sudden)
We're on our way at 8am with fond goodbyes to Aidan and Mandy, so many thanks for your kindness and the trouble you went to, looking after us and showing us the way round.
Our first trip was to have a look at an ancient monument, known as 'New Grange'
This was to be our intended culture for the trip and it took some finding I'll say. Some small and narrow roads in and around the area... Then I thought I'd found it...!
And dangerous round here too, it seems - eek!
In the end we found the site. We parked in the car park, next to the attractions buses that were preparing for their day and went into the site.
At the kiosk we were stopped by a very nice lady. She explained that we could not enter as we needed to go 10km to the visitor centre, where we could board the bus and come back.... (no really!) - just so there was no confusion, I asked if the buses were the ones we had just parked the bikes next to...
"Yes that's right, you see this is a 'World Heritage Site' and the roads are very narrow round here so you'll have to go to the visitor centre if you want to go in".
Pointing out the obvious, that we were here already, on narrow bikes, parked inobtrusively in the car park, so surely we didn't have to go 10km to get onto one of the buses we'd parked next to?- because of course that doesn't make sense does it...? ... cut no sway with this lady. In well practised and automaton style, she continued by repeating that we had to understand it was a World Heritage Site etc etc.
So this is all we could sneek before we did a runner..
.
So now where off to? Lets try some more culture then!
So we started with a distillery (what? it is culture!). It had a working water wheel outside that was doing it's best to disintegrate before your eyes
So onwards and south west to a place called Burren National Park, better known perhaps for being the site of 'Craggy Island' sadly not actually an island though, but at least it meant we could get to it easily though.
The land around it gives the 'craggy' to the name perhaps, acres of bare stone on the hills and on the flat gives a surreal view...
And Father Ted's house of course!
It's fair to say that some of these roads were becoming challenging. Aidan had said that the GS is particularly suitable for Ireland and its roads and now we could see that was true. Sandy was having to negotiate some very poor, loose and gravelly tracks, way too poor to be called roads!
We finished the day in Ennistimon. A short visit to the filling station soon furnished us with details for a suitable B&B, the Grovement House. Very nice too!
Off walking into the town for some food and a walk round too. Nice end to a good day. About as far south as we would get on our travels. The scenery today was not bad, but not that great, as we were heading across the relatively flat centre of the land mass. The last part with Father Ted's got so much better and set the scene for the next day.
Route today 210 miles
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