Ireland Day 4 Dungarvan to Cork

A cold start and a headwind meant that Tracy started the day with one of her numerous extra layers. We made a slow start and the day felt like it could be a bit of a slog after the late finish yesterday. Turns out we were just going uphill!

Problem with our route today was that to get the occasional view like this...

...you have to ride many roads like this, nice and quiet, but you could be anywhere.

After all these years of marriage, Tracy still has problems with my cycling optimism (I know that this sounds unlikely to anyone who knows how cynical I am). So when I say we're going downhill shortly, she thinks that means within the next 30 seconds, when I actually mean at some point in the next 15 minutes. This caused a little friction today, where she insisted that I stop telling her about the route.

We eventually left the rolling fields behind us as we headed to Yougal, where we would pick up the Midleton-Yougal creamery (sorry Greenway) - 25km of flatness.

Can just about see Yougal across the river

Feeling hungry by this point, we decided to stop for refreshments at Luigi's - he walked us through the cakes and sweet treats and had me at Tiramisu - my favourite dessert (is it a cake?) in the whole world. Tracy couldn't decide what to have, so went with 3 (tiny) cakes instead.

Our fuel stop for the ride today.

Ordering all of the cakes removes the problems of decision making.

We took some time in Yougal to track what was going on at home. It was the funeral of Maureen, my father's partner, today. We were actually considering cancelling our tour, but my Dad insisted that Maureen would not want that. We will miss her greatly - she brought so much love and laughter to all of our family.

We eventually rode on to the Greenway. Flat yes, but a strong headwind. Within two minutes of riding, we spooked a buzzard into flight from his perch on the fence - very cool to be so close.

Another fabulous riding surface

Gotta love a mural (or Muriel)

Old signal box

Regular information boards break up the flat miles

Reaching the end of the Greenway at Midleton, we ended up passing through a massive housing development under construction. This unfortunately led us to a road closure and a need to detour. This is quite hard to do when you're not really sure where you were going in the first place.

We eventually settled on a plan that got us to Cork. We had the first hill where we had to use the lowest gear - getting off and walking. In our defence, it was very steep and too much traffic to mess around. 

We arrived at the Gabriel guest house hotel (Well which is it, make your mind up) and began to meet the rest of the Peak Tours group. We had discussed this earlier today and was reminded of the comedian Jimoein on meeting people:

I meet people and ask their names and as they're saying it, I decide not to listen to that bit. I can't ask them again, because they're still saying it. Hopefully we avoided this mistake this evening, although having walked through a doorway since I may have forgotten everybody's names! Next time everyone will look different anyway, with cycle kit and helmets. Getting my excuses in early!

School trip, to the pub!

Lovely to meet everyone this evening. Feeling the need to sleep off a 3 course meal now!

Distance covered: 52 miles

Total Distance: 215 miles

Cake of the day: can't remember the names but they were all good 

Tracy whinge factor: 3/10 grumpy about my definition of what "soon" means.