Sunday, april 2001
Dublin Airport --> Donard (89km)
My flight from Schiphol Airport left at 10:10, so I wanted to take the train sundaymorning, at about 7 o'clock. Unfortunatly the first train on sunday didn't leave before 8 o'clock (on normal days they start at 6 or even earlier.) So I had to take the last train on saturday and stay at the airport. Somehow I managed to stay more or less awake that night, and in the morning I still had all my belongings.
When you've just arrived in Dublin while you're still used to good cycling-paths in Netherlands, it's quite scary. There was a cycling-route with signs to the city-center, but the road apeared to me more like some kind of a highway, so I tried to cycle around Dublin towards the Wiklow-Mountains in the south. But after I took a wrong turn I found myself in the middle of the city.
I didn't have a good map of the city itself, so I had to guess my way trough it. After having asked a couple of people I came to the conclusion that the Irish know how to get to next village, but they don't know where they live on a map. :-)
After 2 hours or so, and after having created a lot of dangerous traffic-situations, I was finaly out of Dublin (and on the right side of it!!!)
I had a nice ride on desolate roads until a came onto the N81 (which was scary at the time, but it wasn't the worst road of Ireland after all.)
Later that day it started raining, but it was warm and I didn't mind. I had some trouble finding the campsite, because they said it was 1 mile from the N-road, so I searched everywhere there, until I cycled a bit further and found it about 3 miles from the N-road in the village of Donard.
Monday, april 2nd 2001
roundtrip Wiklow Mountains (103 km)
My plan was to cycle trought the Wiklow Mountains via Hollywood, Ballyknockan, Lacken, the Sally Gap, Laragh and the Wiklow Gap.There was a very strong wind that day, so I decided to cycle first part against the wind. The mountains where quite steep and there were just a few trees the wind. I didn't have any luck that day, sometime that day, the wind decided to blow from the other direction, so I had the cycle the whole day against it. The worst thing was that a had just a small breakfast and a few snacks on the way. I think it was the most exhausting day in my life, and I arrived just before sunset at the campsite. The pictures I took that day look realy nice, but for me it was one of the worst days in my whole life!
