On the road again!

Thursday, 15th of September. I felt like doing cycling, I was awake, and it looked good outside. The whole forenoon it felt like the new morning, some gentle light, like from the first morning sun. And also when I was on my bike. it felt so peaceful, and I was constantly looking around to see all the beauty which surrounded me. So totally different from my last impression when I first cycled this roads with all the storm and rain and force of nature.

In Clifden I lost my way without noticing. Clifden seems to be very nice, but it doesn't care about ones orientation – barely a sign. So when I found one, I was glad to follow, but didn't thought about the road I was looking for didn't start in this town, so there were two ways for it (I wanted to cycle the N 59 up to Westport, but took accidentally the direction up to Galway). Nevertheless the landscape was nice and interesting, and when 20 kilometres later I realized how I went wrong, it wasn't a loop way, just an alternative way which didn't lead along the coast but along Darryclare Lough and Ballynahinch Lough, and when cycling the R 334 it was just great, such a nice little road. Now I was in the really hilly area of Connemara, but the road wasn't effected that much by this, some ups and downs, nice winding, but to both sides the mountains raise, Maumturk Mountains to the right and Twelve Bens to the left. And lots of sheep next to and on the road!

So it was just lovely new cycling, not that windy, mostly sunny. Originally I had planed to cycle the R 335 from Aasleagh up to Westport, but after a short break I noticed some tiredness, so I decided to take the shorter route, that also would be nice, a local woman told me, and it was. (It's so enjoyable, you just have to sit with your packed bike somewhere and people will come to you and ask about your doing…) The weather changed a little, so it was still bright clear sky in front, but cloudy and stormy behind me, and the dark clouds tried to catch me, but it wasn't that worse.

Once I passed a building, where a sign on the wall in front attract my attention: stop and pray. Just in the middle of nowhere. Then I realized the building was a church, build in modern style. The sign works, but just for half: When I was taking my photo another car stopped, too, but both we forgot about the praying…

 

In Westport after 80 kilometres of cycling I had a bigger break to eat something salty, and when standing up again, I had abruptly bad biting in my calves like getting a cramp – it came out of nothing. I did some stretching and took an extra magnesium and then it was okay again, no problems when going on with cycling. But very curious.

I arrived in Castlebar after 115 kilometres and didn't had any problems to find the home of this night's couchsurfing host John, to whom I had contact since I arrived in Ireland. Unfortunately my towel didn't arrive, I have no idea what has happened, I have contacted Allan but are waiting for reply at the moment – hopefully my stuff didn't get lost. Curiously I don't want to buy a new towel.

John was just nice, although he was tired of working the last three nights and haven't really slept since the last night. But I felt comfortable from the first moment. John has a unbelievable shower, which is located immediate behind a door – so the shower room isn't bigger than the shower tube!

It was a very relaxed evening we spend together and also curious, as there were some other people who were very – let's say: fascinated about conspiracy theory respective UFOs, aliens and the government who knows about this but does not tell us. They showed me some very weird "documentaries" on You Tube, that were made so extremely emotional manipulative – filming of unidentified objects and lights, crazy frightened people on the phone, scary music in the background, most reports taken from the news, so very popular level and much more entertaining, especially when the announcers talked about the features…


Johns brother shocked me when mentioned, I must have very rich parents to be able to do such a trip – it's not only that actually I'm doing this trip in very cheap way, but to think I could be one of these spoiled kids who never have to do something for the things they get! He couldn't be more wrong about me. One should think others know that such a bicycle tour isn't always fun.