Long Way To Tipperary

July 6, 2014

Cultural history of Clare. A nice sepia street photo with Casey's stationers in the section on names from the area which are now to be found in North America, Australia and many other far flung places.

From my bale depot campsite, I return to the Cliffs this morning for a second look and a coffee in the visitor centre, which is inside a hillside, almost hidden except for the entrance and upstairs window of the cafeteria peeking out of the grassy slope, where I sit and look out. Not much change in the weather I see. It's raining again. Luckily though, as it turned out, that would be the last rain I'd see today once it'd moved on.

I'm for striking out east from here, so at least the blustery wind will be on my back. Beyond The Burren and Cliffs of Moher, there isn't I think much more to see in County Clare, and further south, Kerry is ridiculously touristy.

A view from the road off-shore to the Arran Islands.

I follow the road back along the coast, pass small farms and big bungalows with ride-on mower lawns and out-of-place garden-centre scrubs, also weed-killer burnt orange controlled natural flora when it gets too near. Reports in the media has it there's a shortage of bees to pollinate the food we eat, probably due to garden centres selling this destructive, over manicured idea of garden care.

Inland passing through the small town of Lisdoonvarna, with placards up announcing the annual September Matchmaking fair. Probably a more fun event of street dancing nowadays than in the past, when farmers brought along their unmarried daughters looking for suitors that could offer a farm to support a wife and family, money and wealth being just as important as love in days before a welfare state. And passing a young age unmarried and tied down with a house full of wee-ones, was frowned upon, especially for a woman who were sniggeringly called Old Maids. Thankfully times have changed for the better, and no-longer is one expected to fulfil the role of the good wife, or husband.

A circa 1970 (Soviet era) Russian Belarus tractor with a proud owner in the cockpit, taking part in a vintage run.

Being Sunday can in places be awkward when you're out of food. Luckily supermarkets open for a limited time, but first I've to get to a big town. Ennis is more or less in the direction I'm going. I'm finding food in the convenience stores to be something like fifty per cent dearer; and I can end up having an expensive day, having spent no more than on groceries and prepared my own food from such shops.

Arriving in town shortly after one, a nice town to stop, on a river with old bridges and embankments and pastel coloured houses in narrow streets and there's some kind of festival going on, as there's music and a crowd on the green.

I ride with the bumper-to-bumper cars going round in the one-way traffic system, not seeing any supermarket; then ride in the direction I'll be riding onwards, thinking perhaps there'll be one on the edge of town, but there isn't. Riding back into town, I ask a man cycling with his daughter. He directs me into the main walking street, where the entrance to a Dunnes Stores is disguised by an ordinary shop front, which I would've never seen. In through the glass doors I wheel my bike leading into a big shopping centre with cafes and barbershops and shops selling smartphones before passing in by the check-out tills to the food aisles. The prices look expensive as I forget the pound is strong against the euro; eighty pence to one euro. Something costing two euros, is actually, one pound sixty pence. After a lot of picking up items, then putting them back, I finally settle for a farle of wheaten bread and smoked mackerel.

I push the bike along the street to a seat in front of the church and eat lunch. Across the street is an empty florist called "Norma Jean" with an estate agent board in the window. And next door's upstairs appartments have another estate agent's board.

Lunch keeps me going for the remainder of the day and I make good progress on the long straight road to Lough Derg, to the town of Killaloe; then, across the long narrow bridge to Ballina on the Tipperary side, where I stop for a refreshing can of coke sat at a table on the riverbank. Onwards I navigate with much stopping to check the map, until riding a road east towards Thurles, passing through a mountain valley, with forestry on the hillsides either side.

I ride off and pass to the side of a barrier, up a steep hill which is paved, as there's signs it leads to a quarry, though before getting so far, I turn off on a grassy surfaced track a few hundred metres to a level spot to the side and set up the tent.

Old stone bridge at Ballina, County Tipperary, across the out-flow of Lough Derg on The River Shannon.

Victorian era tourism with train excursions from Dublin coupled with a steam-bout cruise. There were photos (too defaced to photo) of the small town in about 1860 looking like a frontier town, though the hilly backdrop looks just like today.

Today's ride: 132 km (82 miles)
Total: 848 km (527 miles)

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