Tour de Dingle

Wednesday, 8/3/11, Dingle

Early in the ride... more self-timer expertise at work here:)

For some reason, while we were planning this trip, one of the activities we REALLY wanted to do was the 47 kilometer (30 mile) bike ride around the Dingle peninsula. The scenery was supposed to be phenomenal, and the ride was reported to be fun... So we woke up early our first morning in Dingle and found a bike shop. Thankfully my left buttock was 100% that morning (remember that stinging plant?!), and we were excited and ready to go! We left Dingle in high spirits... took our first break less than 10 km into the ride:) We quickly made it to Ventry where we walked out onto a long empty beach, put our toes in the water, and took a few pics...

Kat, jumping for joy on the beach!

as we were leaving, a group of horsemen came riding up and rode their horses into the surf and down the beach! I've always wanted to do that... What was hysterically funny to me, though, was the high class trailer park next to the beach. We rode through the park and saw BMWs and Land Cruisers parked out in front of the trailers - along with the giant tractor tires and tents! So funny... we felt right at home in that Irish trailer park!

We were soon riding along the narrow road that hugged the cliffs of the southwest/western part of the peninsula near the Blanket Islands. Tremendous views... I can't even describe. Everything on the coastline was so beautiful and serene yet had we veered off the road just a few feet, we wouldn't have stopped until we hit the water 100+ feet below. And surprisingly, Kathryn was the mama when on top of those cliffs! If I had a dollar for each time I heard, "Meagan, don't get so close to the edge..." Then, hard to believe, but we had to stop so that Kathryn could take some pictures of an American flag-wearing goat.... Thankfully we stopped, because a dream came true during the next 10 minutes. We hopped back on the bikes and had to wait in the middle of the road for a herd of cows to pass!!! Moments like that were EXACTLY what we had imagined back months ago... (it's the little things!).

COWS! You can imagine the moo-ing we were doing:)

Cheating death, one pedal revolution at a time

We made it to the halfway point and were starting to get a little tired and sore. We had already seen the best part of the loop, and the weather was starting to get uncomfortable (aka raining). The morning started out with mid-60 degree temperatures and some cloud cover, at lunch (which was in a field overlooking the sea) they dipped into the mid-low 50s and raining. The last 15 km of the ride was horrible almost not fun. We stopped at an old church (I'm talking, built in the 1300s) because we were barely moving on the road. Kathryn blamed the headwind; I blamed our legs (or lack of feeling in our legs)! And of course, we got to the point where we could barely move, and we had a 5-6 km climb to end the trip. Ugh. By that time, conversation was sparse. We weren't taking any more pictures or video, our eyes were forward, our breathing was labored, and we were grunting from time to time to communicate... aka - we thought we were going to die. The hill got so steep at one point, we got off our bikes and walked a little (don't tell Kathryn I told you that). We finally reached the crest of the hill and stopped, whooping with joy. I got off my bike to take a picture, and Kathryn promptly fell over onto both bikes (in the rain), which garnered our only honk from a passing motorist of the entire trip... I want to point out that she fell off her bike not once, but TWICE that day. Both times while sitting still on the side of the road. You can't take that girl anywhere...

Lunch... with Rick Steves, our BFF.

After the climb (and fall)!

No idea...

Finally we had a downhill coast for the last 5 km of the ride... which was amazing. Took a little chill time at the hostel then went for shepherd's pie at a pub in town. Before finding the music for the night, we spent a little quality time with the statues in town and did a little shopping.  Our last stop of the night was a pub called Murphy's where we had a blast with people from all over the world. We heard folks sing who were from Denmark, Vermont, other parts of Ireland, Australia, England, and Italy! One little girl even got up and danced an Irish jig to one of the songs (I was going to participate, but I didn't want to steal her thunder with my mad Irish dancing skillz)... Last song of the night - "Leavin' on a Jet Plane."

For some reason, Kat thought she should ride the dolphin like a racehorse.