richard barcan <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I am thinking of an August road trip flying Easyjet from Bristol to
Dublin,
> riding accross to Gallwey/Mayo and then down to County Cork. Possibly getting boat from Cork to
> Swansea or Rosslare - Fishguard.
>
> Any experiences about routes/ accomodation (probably won't camp this time)/highs/lows would be
> appreciated.
>
I did this, Dublin -> Dublin, in June 99, using pre-booked Independent Hostels except for 1 night in
Athlone (on spec pub/hotel), and Dublin & Valentia Is. An Oige hostels. The independent hostels were
better than the An Oige ones, and An Oige didn't bother asking about YHA cards or anything. There
are guides to Irish hostels published - a title I remember is "Ireland - all the hostels", You may
be able to find who to get it from via google. I wouldn't really recommend camping anyway - there
aren't many sites away from the popular tourist areas, and wild camping isn't terribly practical to
my eye. There is a lot of low-density ribbon development (a house every half-mile), and they seem to
have half a dozen cows in every field, rather than have them all in one, with the other fields
recovering from the over-grazing, like they do over here.
Route: Dublin - (86m) Athlone - (66m) Galway - (65m) Lahinch - (67m) Tralee - free day (Dingle
peninsula loop) - (54m) Valentia Is - (56m) Kenmare - (32m) Bantry - (80m) Cork - (100m) Waterford -
(73m) Arklow - (52m) Dublin
Dublin to Galway was mostly headwind, but not too strong, Bantry to Waterford was a bit excessive in
terms of distance. In fact the whole pace was too fast - we didn't get a lot of sightseeing
opportunity. In retrospect, it would have been better to stop in Cork (apart from the cars being at
Holyhead that is!), and take the west coast slower. We were also a bit fed up with Guinness by the
end of the holiday (halfway, even). Most pubs round the west coast do meals just like here, but some
of the rural pubs off the tourist trail may be limited to toasties or soup&roll.
Some of the minor roads had awful surfaces - no big holes, but they seem to just put a shovelful of
tarmac in the hole and just pat it down (we did see this being done), until the whole road is
overlapping patches, with not a smooth bit left. On the other hand, the EC funded main roads were
immaculate, with nice wide shoulders for cycling on - generally eveyrone except cyclists and
tractors used the two central lanes, and pulled over to the shoulder when something wanted to
overtake - seemed to work well.
Andrew