Ride outs
Colourful ride out
Last Sunday, thanks to the time change and that Monday was Bank Holiday and we could have some more sleep 🙂 , we got up early to watch MotoGP. The truth is that lately we are watching very few MotoGP races as they are mostly boring. We watch some afterwards when there have been some positive comments on the race (that is to say: 5 or 6 passing in the last 3 laps…)… We prefer to keep with road racing (unfortunately very few can be followed live).
But that day there was Pedrosa pole position and as it’s almost the end of the season we decided to watch it. The race had its lot of excitement and controversy. As the controversy bores me, I’ll keep with Pedrosa’s strong race and victory, at last he got back to his best level. Fingers crossed for next season.
That said, the race and its result ended up waking us up completely, and as it was still early and the day did not look too bad, we decided to go for a ride-out.
We had to delay a few minutes the departure as a cloud decided to pour rain at that moment. But it was only a few minutes.
The idea of the day was to make the most of the ride out taking pictures of Autumn colours. I always loved them, and it is a complicated task as they “arrive” overnight and they are gone in one week or even less if there is a lot of wind or rain (both being quite usual in Cork…). So if you miss one weekend, the next there are no more leaves and no more colours…
As we don’t know yet many places here and that in Ireland there are few forests, we decided to go to a place where we went in June (report here), in Gougane Barra, about 70km and 1 hour ride from home.
The road to get there is very pleasant, the first part quite quick and then it’s a more narrow road and a little bumpy but nicely twisty. In Autumn it’s beautiful, the hedges had their autumn wear on and as it had been raining a scent of wet leaves and wood filled the air. I opened the visor to enjoy it better.
The view around the road was amazing, the mountains that in summer look like green velvet were now coloured in reddish, yellowish or orange brown, the trees along the fields became yellow and the gardens coloured in red, yellow, orange or clear green, a trees rainbow.
We stopped for a first time along the road to take a picture and went on.
With so narrow and twisty roads I can’t stop as much as I’d want to take pictures because there is no room for it (and Juan is quite happy about that 😀 ).
At last we arrived to Gougane Barra. Some trees had already lost their leaves but the colours had nothing to do with when we were there in June. The sky was mainly overcast (it actually rained a little when we stopped) and as it happens sometimes, the light was difficult for taking pictures. But I took them anyway 😉 .
After a while arrived a dozen of Porshe 911 of almost all ages and parked along the lake. It was a nice image 😉 .
When we arrived there Juan was quite hungry (it was after 10am and we had had breakfast at 7am…), and we thought we would have some Irish Breakfast on the way. But the hotel and the bar in front of the lake were both closed. So we had to wait…
After the pics session we went back (the road ends on a paying car park which is also the starting path for hiking around the park). At the next crossroad we decided to turn right to Bantry, indicated at 22km, and to stop as soon as we found some place to have breakfast. That part of the road is also very nice. We were about to stop in a pub indicating “parking at rear” but we missed the entrance and were not in a good place to turn, so we went on.
We went to Bantry, got lost in its streets. The village was crowded with cars: it seems that there was a car rally going on and it was a chaos to go around. And you won’t believe me but we couldn’t find any pub open!
Of course my bike decided that it was the best moment to give problems… My bike has one and only recurrent problem, every time it rains a lot (quite often here 😉 ), as the front mudguard is too short, some water enters in the front sparkplug hole and it stops working and the bike ends up on one cylinder only. So at low speed as when you are stuck in traffic jams, it just stops every two minutes.
As we couldn’t find a place to eat we decided to go back. We got lost again, turned back again. I had seen a pub after the last cross coming from the nice road to the main road so we tried there, but the restaurant was closed until 5.30pm. So we decided to go back to the pub we had first seen on the road going to Gougane Barra. This time we found the parking at rear and the pub was opened and served food! With all those turns and back it was already noon. We both took a lamb dish with fresh vegetables and mashed potatoes. It was quite good. Juan finished his meal with an ice-cream as usual 😉 and we went.
Now that we were not hungry anymore we could take our time again to stop to take pictures 😀 .
We stopped 2 more times. The truth is that the colours were incredible in spite of the difficult light.
We literally escaped from the second stop as there were very dark clouds rushing towards us.
At last we got back home at about 3.30pm, we just had some rain for a few minutes back on the main road, but when we arrived we were dry.
25th of October: a colourful ride out. 😉
Ride outs
Solo ride out- October 2015
On Saturday it was solo ride out day. It doesn’t happen too often because I’m lucky enough to share most ride outs with Juan and from time to time we do some group ride outs. But that Saturday he had to work exceptionally. As we had had 2 weeks without rain and it doesn’t happen too often I thought that I should take advantage while it lasted, we are in Ireland and at the beginning of October, Indian summer will not last forever.
So I left home at about 10am with the bike.
I had planned to “visit” the small peninsula East of Cork, where we had been with the car in one occasion and that had beautiful views.
The first stop was in Rostellan Lake with nice views over the village.
The next stop was to take a picture of something I love in Ireland: the hedges along the road that get together above and form a green tunnel over the road.
The first idea was to go to “Roche’s Point”, where we had been for a sunset in July:
But I missed the junction, there was no clear indications and the indications I saw did not correspond to my map.
Apart from this cape I had no fix point where to go, just the idea to take as much as possible the road along the coast. I got lost several times, I turned around several times, once because I just crossed a small junction with a handwritten sign with some plastic protection indicating “CLIFF WALK” so I went there. The road ended up in an unpaved car park (not the best for me to move the bike around), I had to get down of the bike to turn back and park her. There was only one car parked and a tractor ploughing the field next, followed by dozens of seagulls. I went down to a sand and rocks beach with a lot of seaweed and a lot of surfer seagulls 😉 . There was also a lone fisherman in the distance.
I just stayed there for a while, enjoying the sound of the waves (and of the seagulls) and watching the seagulls play with the waves. Those places radiate Peace.
After a while I went on. The roads were not the best for my bike and after getting lost several times I finally arrived to Ballycotton. The sky had been overcast all morning with a very difficult light to take pics.
I parked the bike in the harbour where there were many fishermen. And I stayed for a while taking pics.
While I was taking pics the sun appeared and the light got much better. Though I started to have problems with one of my lenses which would not focus anymore…
I tried to get something to eat in one of the pubs but they only served sandwiches and I didn’t feel like having a sandwich so I went on with the ride.
I arrived to another village, went back, ended up in a cul de sac (not indicated) having to turn in a garden entrance and back again to the “main” road. After a while I ended up in another car park on a very nice sand beach with dunes, had to do some motocross to turn the bike, and stopped to take a few pics. It was very nice, a pity that I don’t have a clue how to get back there…
Later on I stopped in a village to fill the tank and buy some Tayto and Coke. An elderly man asked me about my bike and told me to respect her always, told me that he had an accident once when he had a bike back in the 70s and that the bushes saved his life. He told me about a good mechanics in Middleton and after a while chatting we said goodbye and I went on.
I ended up behind a tractor with a trailer full of potatoes, so full that from time to time with the (not few) potholes a potato flew away… I had to keep a safe distance until I could overtake…
At the next junction I stopped because I realised I was going the wrong way (again), so I went through a 3rd road indicating the village I had left a while ago. The road was actually quite nice, with beautiful views…
The sky was getting cloudy again and got a few raindrops. I finally arrived to a junction with a better road, which indicated Knockadoon to the right, on my map the last cape on the coast before getting back to the main road. It was not really a village but had a very small harbour and a nice cliff walk. There was nobody but me, and many noisy seagulls. I sat on a bench in front of the sea to eat my Tayto and drink my Coke. The light was bad again for pics, but still nice for the eyes. And again only the sound of the waves on the rocks, the sea was very quiet.
After a good while I went back to the bike and started the way back home. The road was much better now and I went directly to Youghal where I took the main road back home. I arrived at about 4pm, a little tired but quite happy.
I enjoyed a lot riding without a fixed goal, getting lost several times but it didn’t matter.
And I always like a lot when you meet elderly men who say that they also had a bike some day and they always happen to have had an accident. This one was lucky to be saved by the bushes but others would tell you a list of all the broken bones they had then. It happened often to us in Spain and it happens also in Ireland 😉 .
I’m not riding solo very often and I missed sharing the “adventures”, but I had a great time.
I hope the bad weather will take some time to arrive and that we will have time to go for a few more ride-outs before winter.