Days 1-2 – The Great Escape: Limerick to Rosslare Harbour

Days 1-2 – The Great Escape: Limerick to Rosslare Harbour

Monday January 5, 2015, 205 km (128 miles) – Total so far: 205 km (128 miles)

Day 1: Limerick City to Clonmel – 80.5km

After all the preparation, all the hours of research, the obligatory piss ups, lots of goodbyes and finally a late, late night spent packing all my gear the day was finally here. It felt surreal to be finally setting off on this journey.

It was a strange experience walking out the door of the family home knowing that I most likely won’t set foot in it again for another 2 to 3 years. I would be seeing my Mum, Dad and Sister that evening for a meal in whatever town I ended up in but we decided to get the tough goodbyes out of the way now rather than later. A few last photos in front of the house and I was off. Cycling out the gate I was straight into the manic school run traffic of a typical Monday morning. My first impression of the fully loaded bike wasn’t great, I could barely control the fecking thing! As I wobbled through traffic I was wondering how in the name of hell I was going to be able to bring this thing around the world. The fact the bike had drop bars which I’d only used once before meant it was made even more awkward. Somehow I made it into the city centre without any incidents to meet up with Mark at the bridge.

Mark and two other friends had arranged to join me for the first half of the day on the journey out of Limerick before turning back halfway and heading back home. This was very welcome as it was great to have some company for the first stretch before I set off on my own rather than being thrown deep into solitude right away! A few more dodgy incidents with the bike wobbling when trucks were passing and myself and Mark made it to the outskirts of Limerick where we met up with Eamonn and Zaria, the other two members of the convoy.

Their steeds were lightweight mountain bikes, probably four times lighter than the weight I was carrying (45kg) so their plan originally was to annoy me by either speeding away from me or by cycling in circles around me as I slowly trundled along! Luckily they didn’t go through with this plan and instead we all set off in a line out the damp N24 towards Tipperary. We looked like a very strange bunch of cyclists, the point was raised that as I no longer had a beard it didn’t look like I was setting off on an adventure and instead it probably looked like we were out on a normal spin and I was just carrying everyone else’s luggage!

The morning was spent cycling along this main road to Tipperary stopping in at various petrol stations along the way for food stops and long chats. It was a great way to start the day as the company kept the monotony of a road like the N24 at bay! Mid-way through the day we rolled into Tipp Town which was my convoys turning back point. A few of us had agreed a while back that Tipp Town has to be one of the more depressing towns in the country. It was very apt that I was being left here. The lads mentioned that it could only get better from here which was a valid point! We took a few last shots at the final petrol station and said our goodbyes.

The group cycle this far had made things a lot easier but now I was finally off on my own. Typically some ominous clouds moved in and the afternoon turned very grey. The next 40km passed fairly uneventfully, the rain and mist came down as I continued along the N24 bypassing Cahir. I decided to aim for Clonmel which would leave me with a good bit of work to do tomorrow to get to Rosslare but it was the only real place to meet the family for one last meal. I arrived into the hotel as the rain was really setting in and collapsed on the bed. That was the longest I had cycled in 5 months so it had taken its toll. The bike was far too heavy and I was feeling it so I decided to lighten the load that evening shaving off a few kilos and moving some weight from the front to the rear. I was hoping this would make controlling the damn thing a bit easier!

A really nice evening was had with the family with a good meal in the hotel bar, now that we had gotten the goodbyes out of the way the mood was great and we were able to reminisce and talk about the times ahead. When they left that evening it had settled in that I was now finally alone and would be for quite some time. It left me with some time to think about whether I could even accomplish something like this. I like being an underdog and being given very little chance of success but most people I’ve been talking to about the trip say that it’ll be no bother to me and they have every faith that I can make it. This worries me! Luckily there are a few others who are a bit more pessimistic who balance it out. A big shout out goes out to the guy in work who would shout out “DEAD MAN WALKING!” everytime I walked by his desk! To be honest though I have no idea whether I’m capable of doing something like this, it’ll be a proper test of everything I have and either way I’m looking forward to testing myself and seeing how far I can get.

 

Day 2 – Clonmel to Rosslare Port – 124.9km

A big day was needed today if I wanted to make the ferry which I had booked to France for that evening. I had completely underestimated the distance to Rosslare and only discovered the actual distance I had to do the previous night. An early start was called for so I set off a bit before 8am in the dark. It was dipping below 3 degrees as I made my way around the outskirts of Clonmel and back onto the N24.

It wasn’t long before I was in trouble, I was feeling very light headed and was finding it hard to keep pedaling. I had eaten a very good breakfast so I had no idea what the issue was. It was only when my eyes started closing and I started nodding off that I realised that it was actually tiredness. I had only gotten 5 hours sleep which evidently wasn’t enough after the previous day’s efforts. I was starting to drift off every couple of minutes so I had to pull over. I tried resting my eyes for a short time while standing over the bike which helped a bit but what I really needed was some caffeine as I couldn’t afford to be wasting too much time with so many kilometres to go. I pushed on and made it to Carrick on Suir (somehow still awake!), found the first petrol station and necked a red bull. That did the trick and I was soon motoring on being powered by a tailwind towards Waterford.

The sun soon came out, the sky was blue and I had a good tailwind powering me on. Ireland was pulling out all the stops on my last day. By midday I was already past Waterford and heading for New Ross. A driver pulled over beside me outside New Ross for a quick chat about my trip and the bike. It turned out he was a fellow touring cyclist. He was talking about doing a tour in the Summer through Europe, probably a much wiser idea than taking it on in the Winter!

I took a quick break in New Ross for some food, a chicken roll (one of the main staples of the Irish diet!) which was demolished fairly quickly. Out of New Ross, the rest of the day passed fairly quickly. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to Rosslare before it got dark so with 15km to go I switched the lights on and continued along the hard shoulder in the dark towards the harbour. I was again starting to drift off to sleep from pure tiredness but with a couple of breaks and food stops I was able to refuel and keep awake long enough to get to Rosslare.

I had a bit of time to kill before finally boarding the ferry. I was able to spend most of it in the terminal but just before check in closed I had to line up with the cars in the freezing cold. I was out here shivering for a good 20 minutes before we were let on board. Once inside I was given a length of rope to tie the bike up with. I don’t know a single knot so I made an absolute mess of tying the bike up. Somehow I got it looking reasonably solid by looping the ropes all over the shop! It wasn’t pretty but it’d do.

I set off for the outside deck to see us leaving the port. It felt strange seeing the Irish shore slowly disappear into the distance knowing that I wouldn’t see it again for a very long time. Again, it all felt very surreal, I wondered when I would finally come to the realisation that all of this was actually happening, it was going to come as some shock!

Just a quick note to say that at the moment I’ve made it to Reims in Northeast France, the non stop rain here has made the going pretty tough but I’m getting there! I’m going to be a bit behind on the blog as wifi is hard to come by. Once I get to Luxembourg/Germany I should be taking a day off so I’ll try and get up to date then all going well!