HH Challenge, Day Six

Destination: Moville

If I'm staying in a hotel I usually have a look in all the drawers and cupboards.  I don't know why, I'm just interested to see if anything has been left behind by previous occupants of the room and missed during the cleanup. Sometimes there's a book, sometimes a phone charger, you never know.  So after my shower this morning I idly opened the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom and found a cardboard box full of old cassette tapes (although I suppose you don't get 'new' cassette tapes anymore).  This led me on a voyage of discovery around the rest of the room, whereupon I discovered another box of albums and loose photos under my bed, in which I recognised a much younger version of the owner who had greeted me on my arrival, and presumably her family and friends.  There was also a suitcase, but thankfully I left that alone, as that turned out to belong to a fisherman who was also staying in the B&B, but in another room.

HH Challenge, Day Five (Or Inniskeen Road)

Inniskeen Road: July Evening

The bicycles go by in twos and threes -

There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn tonight,

And there's the half-talk code of mysteries

And the wink-and-elbow language of delight... 

Patrick Kavanagh 

Ah yes, I've started throwing a bit of poetry into my blog entries now, it's getting serious.

I know I've fallen behind a bit with my blog entries, but I'm trying to pick up the slack now, and I don't intend to let them get any more than a week late. I'm going to continue to write as if it is actually the day of the events, just to make life easier.

Destination: Inniskeen

I read in a travel book I got once that you can travel light by only bringing a change of clothes and washing them in hotel/hostel/service area sinks in the evenings, wringing them out, hanging them up and leaving them to dry overnight.  This worked out well when I was coming across Europe last year, and it's even more of a necessity on this trip as I set out to be as minimalistic as I could. Including what I was wearing I left home with:

2 t-shirts - I was given a third, bright orange, Run for Life one at the photo shoot on Saturday

2 pairs of trousers (one with the zippy legs so they can be shorts if necessary)

2 pairs of underwear

2 pairs of socks

1 set of pyjamas - for modesty's sake if I was going to be partnering up with somebody

1 pair of swim shorts

1 set of running gear (shorts, tee-shirt, trainers)

1 long sleeve t-shirt

1 fleece

1 set of rain gear (leggings and oilskin)

HH Challenge Day Four, Continued (or Beating Banagher)

Destination #4, Banagher

"That beats Banagher.  And Banagher beats the devil."

This is what a lady in Connemara said to me on my way to Claddaghduff, when I told her where I was heading after that.  I'd only ever heard the start of that expression before, so I'm going to try and fit that into a conversation somewhere soon.

Some images from the past few days

My host in Limerick

First swap - a tremendous deal

Checkpoint reached

HH Challenge, Day Four

Such a long day, can hardly keep my eyes open, I will tell you everything in the morning if I can wake up.

HH Challenge, Day Two Continued, and Day Three

Time to give a quick run-down of yesterday's events.

But first, I must explain another part of the challenge I hadn't mentioned before.  At the start of the challenge, each team received an orange to take with them, which they’re to try to swap for something more interesting as they go about their journey, and  will continue swapping for the week.  The best or most interesting orange substitute by the end of the challenge will be the winner. 

One reason I hadn’t mentioned this on Saturday, apart from having mounds too much to write about, was that I had not yet succeeded in swapping it out for anything, and I had visions of turning up in Bundoran with a mashed and bruised orange (and all my gear covered in juice).   There had also been stages during the day when I had been considering simply tucking into it.

HH Challenge, Day Two

This is really going to be a quick one, trying to be disciplined and write a blog before bed each night, but each night I seem to be ending up staying up that little bit later.  On day 0 we finished up by one, and I stayed up writing until after two.  Yesterday I got home after our night out in Limerick at about two, and got to sleep at about three after blog writing.  Day three sees me home at four thirty in the morning.  I can't spend an hour writing tonight.

However, so much amazing stuff happened, and I have once again been blown away by people's kindness and generosity on the roads and elsewhere.

Destination #2 - Quin

I can't go into detail now, but made it from Limerick to Quin with just one particularly sound lift.  I knew there was festival on in Doolin, so I made plans to head in that direction for the night.  Tremendous idea, although a) I don't think I'll be able to speak tomorrow, and b) I'm so exhausted I can't even see the screen properly now.

I will make it my mission to write more tomorrow and post pictures if I can get a wifi connection in the afternoon.  But now sleep is the top priority.

Hitchhiking Challenge Day One

Before I begin, I'll add some pictures from yesterday.

The first arrivals at Fitzmaurice's Caravan and Camping Park

The distribution of destinations - My destinations are in yellow with an X

One of my randomly chosen destinations.

Destination #1 - Kilmallock

Began this morning with a photo shoot at 10:30 with a painted up Merc that's taking part in the Crumball Rally in July, in aid of the Solas Centre for cancer care .  You can find pics from that here.

We had everyone on the road by about 12:30ish, I think, and I was the last group (I consider myself as a group as it makes me feel less lonesome) to leave.  After a bit of indecision as to which direction to set out from I ended up choosing to head on the coast road in the Dungarvan direction to get towards Limerick.  In truth I couldn't find the road to Clonmel, and I reasoned that I'd get to see some of the Waterford coast and countryside on my way, seeing as I was unacquainted with this part of the country.

Walked for a good bit before I found a decent place to try and stick out my thumb and before long got my first lift of the challenge, who kindly told me that he thought I was on a pretty bad road to get to Dungarvan, and suggested putting me on a better one, which meant cutting north, across to another almost parallel road on the other side of Dunhill, pointing out his house and some points of interest along the way - most notable being the Anne Valley Walk, a 2km trail from Dunhill to Annestown and looks pretty scenic, and will definitely be getting a visit next time I get down Waterford way again.

Was waiting about twenty minutes or so before being picked up once again by a friendly gentleman, who kindly told me that he thought I was on a pretty bad road to get to Dungarvan and suggested putting me on a better one, which meant cutting north again, across to another almost parallel road, which turned out to be the main Tramore - Waterford road (N25), which I'd shunned earlier in favour of the coast.  You live and learn.

Made small hops from on place to another, passing through Lismore, which has a pretty spectacular castle, and meeting some amazingly friendly and helpful people until I got to Tallow.  Where things just stopped for an hour or so...

Taking a break on the N72 beside Tallowbridge

A funny thing I noticed while I waited was that a lot of people seem to have trouble with directions at the crossroads for Tallowbridge, some people coming from the Lismore side seemed indecisive when arriving at the junction - one car returned to take the junction from several angles before they presumably found the road they were looking for.  More curious than that though were the number of cars that would come across the bridge from Tallow, stop at the junction and then do a U-turn on the main road to go back across the bridge again.  I didn't count to begin with, but when I realised it was a regular enough thing I counted at least five in the time I was there, including a jeep with a trailer.  I just thought it was strange, or that it might just be a game that the locals play at the weekends.

Eventually I was picked up and delivered to Fermoy, where I had much better luck.  The next lift I got was surprising as I ended up sharing a car with Aurimas and Ciara - two other challengees, who were heading west as well.  Our driver let us all out in Mallow, and we went our separate ways once again, they towards Killarney and I towards Limerick.  My next lift, an absolute hero, who was going all the way to Limerick, had originally agreed to let me out in Charleville, so I could make my way towards Kilmallock and get my mandatory photograph.  However, once we came to my turn off in Charleville, he examined my map and decided that Kilmallock wasn't all that far out of his way, and that he'd take a wee detour to help me tick that box.

Destination #1

A true gent, he then dropped me off on the west side of Limerick where I could walk into town and meet another legend, a Couchsurfer in town, who very kindly had offered to be my Couchsurfing host for the night.  I'd offered to buy dinner as a show of gratitude, so after I'd dropped off my bags and had a quick shower we made our way to The Red Onion Brasserie.  We weren't sorry, the food was tremendous, I would highly recommend the seafood platter.  And the dessert platter was amazing too.

Had a few bevvies in town before returning home.  

All in all, a fantastic day.  Met nothing but wonderfully entertaining and witty people and had a good feed as well.  Weather-wise I lucked out as well - for the most part the rain held off until I was actually in a car, and then it chucked down, but every time it had eased off by the time we arrived at the place where I was to get out.  The only exception being the extended stop I had in Tallow, but even then it didn't rain for as long or as heavily as it had at other times. 

Now once again, I'm delaying my bed time, but so far so good on blog writing.  

Still Alive, and Still Hitching

A series of good news bulletins just to fill you in on the last year since you last heard from me...

1: I made it home safely to Ireland in eleven days of hitching from Greece - I realise my last post, almost a year ago kind of left things hanging a bit, but I haven't spent the past year in someone's basement - I just didn't have time to write when I was on the road (was literally hitching from dawn to dusk) and when I got back the prospect of writing about ALL the wonderful experiences I had on my way was daunting so I put it on the long finger.  Turns out that finger is pretty long.  The floods of concerned emails to see if I was alright was touching, though. Or at least they would have been, had there been any.  Thanks.

2: I had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

3: I am still hitching.

In fact that's not exactly true, have only hitched once since last year when my car was being fixed.  But I've been involved in the organisation of a hitchhiking event that started today.

Going to keep descriptions very brief as it is late and I have to get up early tomorrow, but here are the basics:
Event Name:  Discovering Ireland Hitchhiking Challenge
How it works:  Basically the same general format as the Discovering Ireland Board Game, if that helps.  Each team (we're going in pairs), randomly chooses a card from each deck of destinations (five decks of destinations split into zones - North, South, East, West, Midlands) they are also given one 'Off the Beaten Track' card, selected by the committee, that will take them into the wilds of rural Ireland - places like Malin Head, Valentia Island, Mullet Peninsula.  This all happened this evening, in The St Leger bar in Tramore, Co. Waterford.

Now, tomorrow morning the teams will set off on a week long adventure, hitching to each of their chosen destinations, and finishing in Bundoran, Donegal next Friday for the Sea Sessions festival.

That's the basics.

My destinations are:

Banagher, Offaly
Killmallock, Limerick
Quin, Clare
Mountmellick, Monaghan
Moville, Donegal

My out of the way destination is Claddaghduff, Galway.

Unfortunately at the moment I don't have a team mate, as there was an uneven number of attendees, so I'm going solo, until such a time as I find a partner along the way.  I haven't ruled out the possibility of that yet.

There are five full teams, though, and everyone seems excited about the whole thing so it's good.  Originally the plan was to camp in Fitzmaurice's Camping Park, Tramore, but when we arrived at 5pm the weather was horrific, and showed no sign of letting up, so the first five arrivals decided to upgrade and rent a mobile home for the night - €100.  Of course the weather pretty much cleared at about 7pm, but still, it was a good base for mission control.  Some hardier (and later arrivals) took the option to stay in the dunes by the beach. Also a good option.

I've figured out how to tether my phone to my computer, so I should be able to update this page wherever I am.  But I'll wait to get a wifi connection to upload pictures - just to keep my data usage below the limit.

Must dash now, sleep beckons.