The Irish Trip, April 06.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2006, if I could offer you one piece of advice for the future, keeping notes on your travels in the present would be it. Earlier on in the year, the week of the 10th of April to be precise, my friend Mo and I took our first of two ventures overseas. My intention at the time was to keep a journal of our trip so that some time in the future I could write it up in some sort of blog, one sort of like this very one. Anyway, while things in the first half of the week went well and plenty of notes were made, and are indeed proving very useful, the second half of the week has become a bit of a nightmare to recall and so will not be as accurate a picture of the trip. So remember just one thing I tell you, MAKE NOTES…..

Monday 10/04/06, Day 1 of the Irish trip.

I was up surprisingly early this morning. Despite wanting to get a lie in and have some rest for the week ahead, something inside me wouldn’t allow it. The mind was willing but the body was weak so I just lay there for a while watching trash daytime TV.
Started my packing the previous night and as soon as my clothes were together I decided that I was packing far too much stuff and removed half of it. Surely a mere five full days travel shouldn’t require so many clothes, shoes, picnic hampers, hair products and, er…… I mean just clothes. As it was I reduced the initial cache to just three t-shirts, one pair of jeans and a jumper (which I remember may also have been left behind depending on how the packing went that day), shoes, socks boxers and wash kit. The only other bits of kit I would be carrying were my camcorder, a camera and my mobile phone for emergencies.
Mo said he would be leaving home about mid day just as soon as he had attended to some business at the doctors. That would put him on course for arrival at mine some time between five and six o’clock in the afternoon. Either way I told him we were leaving home about seven to catch the overnight ferry.
Talking of the ferry, our Ste (my brother who works on the ferry) did us proud getting us tickets for that. Firstly he used up his own entitlement to tickets to give to us, and secondly he said that if we rang him when we are lined up in the compound he would call the duty superintendent and get him to load us up first so that we could get settled into the bar, er, I mean our cabins early.
So as I wrote these notes I was sat in a café drinking a coffee with the task of actually packing my bags still ahead of me. All the gear was out, it was just getting it into the bags that would be a ball ache. I was also going to get the bike up on the paddock stand and give it the once over.
With Mo arriving that afternoon, the ferry overnight and the holiday actually upon me I can honestly say that for the first time in a long time I was actually excited about something.
Mo turned up at the house just after six, only getting lost once. He called from the hospital just down the road but after a phone call and some directions found his way no problem. John (my house mate at the time) was being his usual boorish self but thankfully never hung round for very long before going out.
The trip to the ferry terminal didn’t take long, but once there we found that we had been booked onto the Belfast ferry on accident. No worries, just mentioned our Ste’s name and were swapped onto the Dublin one at the drop of a hat. Even when we booked in at reception on the ferry they were very friendly to us and fixed us up with a nice cabin.
So after a few beers and a quick glimpse of the night time Liverpool skyline it was off to bed for a whole four hours sleep before arrival in Ireland.

Tuesday 11/04/06, Day 2 of the Irish trip.

My alarm went off at 04.30. I couldn’t believe it as I had only had about three minutes sleep! Having left the navy a few years ago, six to be precise, I have grown used to sleeping in my own bed. Mo on the other hand was out like a light as soon as er, the lights went out, and reasonably refreshed come morning.
We were the first off the ferry, and after getting my bearings we fuelled up and headed off down the east coast towards Wessex along the N11. By this time it was still only about half five in the morning. The weather had taken a turn for the worse overnight and so there was no real chance to appreciate the fantastic scenery around the Wicklow Mountains with the cloud being down at such a low level and the rain getting steadily worse. After only an hour or so ride we had to pull over so I could get into my full water-proofs.
There was no real plan on where we were going, Wessex was just the first place on the map that stood out so we headed there. Upon our arrival in the early morning we were ready for something to eat and so found a café serving full Irish breakfasts. Much the same as full English really but served with soda bread and white pudding. I think by this time we had both had enough of the rain, but as it was still before nine we couldn’t really call it a day there. Looking over the map while eating breakfast and trying to dry our clothes out a little the decision was made to head for Waterford.
After only one wrong turn, where we ended up in Rosselaire, we arrived at Waterford and for the first time in an already long day the sun made an appearance. Although only there for a couple of hours, just time for something to eat and a little wonder round and some filming and take some pictures, it struck me as a really nice place with friendly people. The photo of me taken in front of a huge phallus was taken on the water front here. Storm clouds were gathering as our short stay came to an end and so we decided to head for our final destination for the day and find somewhere to stay.
Looking on the map Limerick seemed just far enough away to make for a comfortable journey. The route there would also take us through Tipperary. Yes it was a long way there but not so far as you would think!
We parked up not far from the tourist information centre at Limerick and walked round to it in the hope they would be able to point us in the right direction for a hotel/ B+B for the night, but no such joy. I should correct that by saying they could help us with finding rooms, but only at places with extortionate rates. We decided therefore to take the risk of finding somewhere for ourselves, and as luck would have it, not far from the centre of town was a long row of guest houses. The charge was 60 Euro for a twin room for the night. A lot better than any of the places suggested at the tourist information. Although the place we ended up at didn’t look like much from the outside I think we were both surprised by how nice the room was inside, it was even en-suite, which was great. The added bonus was that the landlady let us put the bikes out of sight round the back off the main road and in a position where we could see them from our room. I always like to secure the bike well and out of sight as they are so easy to lift and throw in the back of a van. No matter how nice the place you are staying seems to be, there are villains everywhere. I can speak from bitter experience that it pays to be over cautious than to not be cautious enough!
After settling in and performing the three essess (shit, shave and shower) and a bit of a snooze (again I couldn’t sleep but Mo was well away) we headed into town for something to eat and a few beverages. Even though we were in Ireland we still chose to eat foreign food at a place called the ‘Texas Bar and Grill’. Still, while in Ireland……
This capped off well the end of what had turned out to be a marathon twenty hour day and finally I managed to get a decent sleep, ready for whatever the trip had to throw at us the next day. Had I known what the next day had in store for us, I would probably have stayed in bed a lot longer and saved myself some petrol money!

Just to get the ball rolling on this Blogging thing, which is still very new to me, I’ll just share with you a tale about a short trip I took on the bike (a J2 Kawasaki ZX6R) on my own in March 05. It was the first weekend I had had to myself for ages, it was also a bank holiday and so I decided to head into Wales. I never had any plan on where I was going to end up, or for how long I would be away, but that was half of the fun.

Friday 25.03.05

The weather was booked for the weekend and it just remained for me to make the most of it. No good days biking should start without a good breakfast however, so my mate John and I headed for the local Morrisons for a full English. That finished it was time to go home, pack up and hit the road.
John was heading east towards his dads. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going to end up, except that I was heading south and into Wales. The only map I had available was one of the big 2004 road atlases, so I ripped out a couple of pages with Wales on them and headed off.
To cut a long and ultimately tedious journey short, I ended up passing by Wrexham on the A5 and heading towards the Llandudno turn off which was a few miles later. The only thing of note during the initial part of the trip was filtering through the slow moving traffic at more than twice their speed while a guy on a brand new Fireblade tried to keep up.
For me, the turn off for Llangollen and the twisties is where the fun part of the weekend really began. I passed through a small village and then the road ambled through a spectacular valley along the side of a canal. There was really no need to overtake anything as the traffic was quite free flowing, and anyway there was no hurry to get anywhere. To be honest, it took a while for that fact to sink in, but once it did the weekend became that bit more enjoyable and relaxing. It is sometimes hard in the world today to forget everything and just chill and enjoy the experience of doing absolutely nothing.
The road I was on turned out to be the A539, and it led straight into Llangollen. By now the sun was cracking the flags and I decided to top and get a cool drink. Even though I was on the bike it was hard to find somewhere to park as it seemed that every man and its dog had decided to come here on this day. Eventually though, after about fifteen minutes of farting about I managed to park up between two cars.
I hadn’t been to Llangollen since I was at school, so really it was like visiting the place for the first time. It really is a beautiful place, especially when the weather is as good as it was on that Friday. The main street starts off with a wide arched bridge that spans the river Dee and then leads up on a shallow incline past shops, bars and coffee houses. I parked the bike about two thirds of the way up the main street, had an amble round and then went for a coffee in the café directly opposite where the bike was resting. I was writing a few notes on the trip so far when a female voice asked ‘is that your bike over there?’ My first contact with another person as a solo traveller. The girl turned out to be working in the café and had just brought me over my latte. She was really friendly and we ended up having a good old chat about absolutely nothing, the only thing of note being her mentioning that the A5 out of Llangollen was a very scenic road.
As soon as the village was behind me the road rose up along the side of a valley and provided some spectacular scenery. My main memory of this part of the trip was about two miles out of Llangollen where the road did a quite sharp 180 degree left turn followed by a sharp 90 degree right turn. The road surface was brilliant and every sharp bend had shell grip on it which increased your confidence in the tyres.
This carried on for quite a while until the A5 met the A494. If it was possible for the road to get any better then it just did. It just seemed to snake through the countryside till I reached my eventual destination for the evening, Bala, right on the edge of Snowdonia National Park. I was going to push on to the coast to be honest, but it was past three by now and I thought there would be no point in just passing through places without seeing them. So as I was passing through the village I noticed a pub with a sign advertising the fact that accommodation was available. Ideally, considering my fairly tight budget at the time, it turned out to be only £20 for the night bed and breakfast. Happy days.
After checking in I showered, got changed and took a walk down to Bala Lake. The view was amazing. If you wanted to lose yourself for a couple of hours this would be the place to do it. After having a chat with a friend of mine over the phone I sat and watched the world pass by. I don’t think I have enjoyed doing nothing so much for a long time.
On my return to the village I put my bike in the rear courtyard of the pub, where the landlady had very kindly allowed me to leave it, and then decided to get a newspaper and have a pint before going for tea. One pint actually turned into three, but the general idea was the same.
I had my tea in a pub just down the road from the one I was staying in. It was curry and I have to say that it was a very nice one too. It was here that I met the Welsh Jim Royle. As I was sat on my own a two couples came and joined me. It turned out that one of the men was quite a big star on S4C (the Welsh version of Channel 4). It also turned out that he was in the middle of filming a welsh version of ‘The Royle Family’, and he was playing the part of Jim Royle. They were all really nice, friendly people, but it was strange the way they swapped between English and Welsh language. In the past I would have thought that it was because they were talking about me (being paranoid and all), but now I am of the opinion that they would slip between the two languages even if they were talking amongst themselves.
So after a gut full of ale and a curry I decided to head off to bed. To tell the truth I was going to chance another pint in The Ship (the pub I was staying in), but by the time I got back there I was wiped out and just wanted to sleep. I think it was around half past ten when I finally hit the sack, and after watching a bit of telly I was away for the night.

Saturday 26.03.05

I wanted to be up and away as soon as possible to make the most of the day and the weather on the Saturday. So after a good breakfast and a photo shoot of the bike (I’ll post that later) I headed off along the side of Lake Bala and into the national park. Yet again the roads were fantastic.
The only problem with this leg of the trip was being stuck behind a Vauxhall Senator. There were plenty of opportunities to get past it, but not without going over the 50mph speed limit, and as Senators are synonymous with coppers I thought it would be sensible for me to keep my distance. I did get hacked of with the dithering in the end though and couldn’t stop myself from flying past him.
At the end of this road was a T-junction where I turned right and then left for Barmouth. I had the pleasure of riding past a considerate car driver here who flashed me to warn of a police speed trap ahead. Sure enough as I turned left onto the road for Barmouth the sneaky bastard was sat in a lay-by with his gun.
Barmouth turned out to be a lovely little seaside resort and I stopped here to get a brew (of course, I love me brews me). The views here were spectacular, but it occurred to me that although solo travelling is good for the soul, it is also good to have someone to share the experiences of the places you go to with.
I eventually headed off for Betws-y-Coed (pronounced Betsy co-ed I am reliably informed) after enjoying the view out to sea and over the hills for a little while. Now if the roads of the previous day, and earlier on this day were good, then the road that led here was fantastic. It lead through valleys, over hills, through small villages and past beautiful scenery, and all the time it gave a great view ahead as well as giving good grip and feedback through the tyres.
After stopping for another brew and a bit of a wander round Betwys I had to consider one important option, where was I going to watch the England V Northern Ireland match. The only place in Wales that I thought it may be shown was a large town, and the only large town about happened to be Llandudno. So I headed for there along a road that in comparison to the ones I had been riding the last two days was, well, pretty average really. It did get me there quite quickly though, but once there I realised what a one horse town the place really was. There was something familiar about the place too, and it took a while to twig that I had been there with my ex girlfriend about ten years before. Even back then I remember thinking it was crap. As time to kick off was running short I decided to head for Chester to see if I could catch the game there.
As it turned out there was no chance. Heading along the A55 the heavens decided to open and it wasn’t till I was back on English soil that it stopped, although it had obviously been bad here too as the roads were drenched.
By now it was obvious that the match was beyond reach so as the Brewery Tap (a local biker’s pub) was just down the road I decided to call in there to see if anything was happening. Shouldn’t have bothered as mine was the only bike there and so, disheartened after the brilliant last 36 hours, I headed for home.