Tuesday , april 17th 2001
Kilkee - Corrofin (? km)
The day was rainy and windy. My plan was to cycle to the cliffs of Moher, and then to Corrofin in the Burren. But as I came closer to the cliffs of Moher, the weather turned realy bad with a lot rain and fast winds.So I decided to skip the cliffs and go as fast as possible to Corrofin. Near Ennistumore my luck disapeared totaly. I got the first puncture this vacation, no problem to fix ofcourse. But when I turned my bike upside down to fix it, the whole tire appeared to be worn off, there was a hole in the tire that went to the tube. I was mad at myself because it didn't carry a spare tire, because I had good new tires. But the load on the back of my bike and the not-always-perfect Irish roads made the tire wear off much faster. I asked some locals if they knew a shop that sold tires; they sent me to the village of Kilfenora, and I walked there. Once I was there I couldn't find the shop. So I asked in the local supermarket, and they told me that it was 2 doors to the left. And indeed, you could see a 'Giant'-logo and some spareparts behind a dirty window. Unfortunatly the shops wasn't open, so the girl from the shop walked showed me the house were the owner lived. But he wasn't at home. I couldn't do anything else than walk to the campsite in Corrofin and see what I could do there. When I arrived at the site, David and his girlfriend were there too! They told me that they saw tires in the grocery-store. Yes! Finaly some luck! But unfortunatly the tire with the same size on it as mine, didn't fit; it was to large, and they didn't have any tire that you could fit in some way. Then we discovered a bicycle-wrek at the campsite, and we asked if we could use some of the tire. The owner didn't know, but he told us to do so, as long as he doesn't know anything. With a piece of the tire of the wrek underneath my own tire, I could cycle at least until I had a new tire. That evening we went to the Curtain's pub to have a drink.


Wednesday , april 18th 2001
Corofin - Galway
(route: see map above) Today I cycled trough the Burren, which are a strange moonlandscape with stones everywhere. I saw a portalgrave (with a busload of tourist), but I couldn't get close to it; it was closed because of mouth-and-foot-disease (I didn't know that stones can get it too;-) The last part along the coast to Galway was a bit less exciting. In Galway I found the campsite at once, but it was the most unfriendly and mostexpensive one in whole Ireland. 7,50 pounds for me and my tent, and you had to pay for everything: showers (of which the first 2 minutes of the 3 minutes were could), warm water, cooking. Stupid campsite in Galway!