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.