From Malin to Mizen
A more traditional "What I did on my summer holidays" style post: cycled from Malin Head to Mizen Head over a week. Rather than going solo, this is a journey that had to be done with friends.
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As I’ve mentioned before, it might seem like I’ve forgotten about my loyal newsletter readers - it’s far from the case, I’ve just been neglecting you. I’ve made the excuse that I’ve been out living my life throughout the summer, with writing being relegated to the background, though still running like an app that hasn’t been closed in 4 years and is taking up most of the computer’s bandwidth even when it’s not in use.
Plus I’ve been posting on other platforms.
I thought now it’s probably time I go back to my blogger’s roots and report on some of the actual real-life trips and journeys I’ve been going on.
As some of you may know, I recently cycled from Malin Head to Mizen Head with a few friends – these are Ireland’s northernmost and southernmost points, in counties Donegal and Cork, respectively. This was originally conceived of as a good old fashioned Lad’s Holiday (considering most of my travel writing the past year has been about solo travel, you may have assumed this is Not My Thing - you would be wrong, and it is a means of travel I will be writing about in the future), and so instead of going the most direct route out of some sense of achievement (i.e. just “saying you’d done it” or doing it as fast as possible), the planned route would take us seven days to complete, and take in more of Ireland’s now-famous Wild Atlantic Way.
We even ended up raising a ton of money for Ireland’s youth mental health organisation Jigsaw.
In keeping with the “What I did on my holidays” style of an old-school blog, here are some of the details of the trip
The Details
The planned route was 760km, to be completed in 7 days (a few of the lads’ Garmin’s tracked a total of 800km over the week though, as there were last minute route-changes, city cycling, etc), with a total elevation gain of (I think) about 6,500m. Each day was between 90 and 125km, with most days somewhere around 120km.
Everything was planned on a big spreadsheet (credit to Mark O’Riordan, chief organiser), from routes to days to times to speeds to lunch breaks to elevation gains to accommodation to costs to gear to checklists and nutritional recommendations.
We rented a van to help with logistics: transporting all our luggage and supplies like water, Lucozade, Jaffa cakes and snacks, spare parts and tired men, and so on. The cost was split between us (€1200 for the week, about €120 each + diesel) as were the driving responsibilities. We also stocked up on a communal stash of aforementioned supplies like water and Lucozade, etc.
We set an average target pace of 27 kilometres per hour, often cruising at 30-32kph on flats. The top speed I heard mentioned over the week was 73kph (not achieved by me)
My friends are serious cyclists – most of you may not have ever heard me mentioning cycling, and there’s a reason for that: I don’t ‘cycle’. Or I didn’t until now. Although I could cycle from when I was a young child, I’m not a ‘cyclist’ and only really began this year. To be honest, I learned almost everything I know now throughout the course of this trip (I am terrible at learning things in advance or theoretically, or even in an appropriate step-by-step fashion, and would rather throw myself in at the deep end with just enough fitness and know-how to survive - see: snowboarding, meditation, running, all travel I’ve ever done).
Day by Day:
Day 0: Home - Dublin - Carndonagh
We all met in Dublin at the van rental place. Three of the group drove the van with all bikes and gear to Donegal and the rest of us got the bus (McGinley’s) from Parnell Square (€25 one way) to Carndonagh. Stayed in Carndonagh (Butterbean B&B), home of insomniac boy racers and more pubs than buildings - about 20.8km from Malin Head.
Total cycling distance: 0km. Total driving distance: A lot.
Day 1: Carndonagh to Malin Head and back – Derry City – Raphoe – Ballybofey
Total distance: 120km. Total flat tyres: 2. Total bike repairs: 1. Total weather: atrocious
Looking back this felt like a lazy start. Possibly more in line with what I was expecting (maybe my expectations came true) – steady, workmanlike cycling. Average weather and wide national roads turning into arduous slog through rainstorm. Subdued evening focused on showering and eating. I expected it all to be like this, though you should never judge a trip by its first day. The sum total of a proper adventure is not 1+1+1+1+1+1+1 = 7, but more like an exponential growth where every day compounds on the last to produce something far more than the sum of its parts (don’t ask me to create an equation for this, I’m a master of words not numbers).
Day 2: Ballybofey – Donegal Town – Ballyshannon – Bundoran – Sligo Town
Total distance: 90km. Cycling pace: fast, to make it to Sligo in time for the All-Ireland hurling final. Group organisation: terrible.
The group fell apart early on and so some clear communication of our cycling strategy had to be set out. In the afternoon we cycled together as a group at a set pace, which was new to me and gave me a tough introduction to Real Cycling. The sun came out – it wouldn’t go back in for the week. Made it in for the hurling – a great day in Sligo. Some rules may have had to be set about bed times, though it was a great day for ‘team bonding’ as well. End of phase 1 of the Trip.
Day 3: Sligo – Easky – Ballina – Pontoon – Castlebar – Westport
Total distance: 125km. Total hangovers: zero.
A big day. Lots of good cycling here as we really started to find our legs and remained steady as a group for the day. Home advantage helped for me - helped with managing the day mentally, and made me feel like I knew something. Topped off with a beautiful swim at the Point in Westport. Up Mayo. By now roles and the wider group had taken shape. We were detached from the real world of news and the passing of days, and were starting to really get stuck into the Trip.
Day 4: Westport – Drummin/Sheefry Pass/Delphi – Leenane – Inagh Valley – Oughterard – Galway City
Total distance: 128km. Total heat: hot. Total wind: strong easterly. Total cycling: massive
This was another Big Day. A last-minute route-change took us off the main Leenane road from Westport and through Drumming and the Sheefry Pass: a spectacular part of the country that few people know about. Leenane and through Connemara are always a treat, though the Inagh Valley section took the group into a big headwind. Fatigue was starting to catch up with people after two big big days of cycling. But nonetheless felt like we were starting to make serious progress, finished off with fine food and roaming through the revitalising busy laziness of a rare-but-magical balmy summer’s evening in Galway.
Day 5: Galway – Kinvara – Curran – Kilfenora – Lahinch – Miltown Malbay – Kilkee
Total distance: 115km. Total sunshine: endless. Total beautiful rural towns and villages: many
This was the big one. Journeys go through cycles and stages, and you must face through some early adversity and frustration, before focusing on the task and building up steady momentum and progression. But somewhere past the halfway mark you reach the Crest of the metaphorical hill, and then it’s all downhill from there (not in the metaphorical sense, which ends in tragedy, but in the literal, freewheeling sense, like actually going down a hill on a bike). This was that day. Despite having put 4 hard days behind us, it felt like all the hard work paid off and our effort was rewarded with something more manageable - almost everyone agreed this was the finest day so far. I hadn’t thought much about what Clare and its globally unique landscape of the Burren might hold, maybe because I’m so familiar with the areas around Sligo, Mayo and Galway which made up days 3 and 4. But this place was the surprise package of the trip, with I daresay the nicest towns and villages the west of Ireland has to offer (at least when flying through on a bicycle at high speed). West Clare’s famous surfing and be-cliffed coastline stretches on forever to the southwest, as we powered up and down its immaculate roads (a word to the council) with our best cycling to date. Finished with ocean-pilling in Kilkee, the best Pints so far in The Most-Unchanged Old Man’s Pub (Murphy’s), and a contender for Best Fish & Chips (Nolan’s). These trips pay off from Day 0 in line with your expectations: great craic, interesting scenery, challenging, etc. But they evolve too, and reaching and surpassing The Crest of the Hill is the point where the velocity of your journey smashes through your expectations and the whole thing takes on a character your couldn’t have conceived of in advance.
Day 6: Kilkee – Killimer – Tarbert (via ferry) – Listowel – Glenageenty Woods – Firies – Killarney
Total distance: 104km. Total ferry crossings: 1. Total hills: endless. Total pints in Killarney: many
Things were getting tough. Inevitable with the end in sight, but still having over 200km to go. 3 big big days before, temperatures always hot, the rolling effect of cycling day after day starting to take its toll. Got a nice break 20km in with the ferry crossing from Killimer to Tarbert, taking us into county number 8: Kerry aka The Kingdom. Lots of poor quality back roads to avoid traffic, and lots of unforecast hills made this one of the toughest days. We were entering exciting unchartered territory as this was my first time in Ireland’s tourism capital of the southwest: Killarney: gateway to the Ring of Kerry’s mountains and coastline, Killarney National Park’s forests, and a place where they know how to play football and make a few pound (not at the same time, it’s an amateur sport). The penultimate day of the trip, this was our final night together as a group, and an inexplicable wave of festivity overcame many of us when faced with the prospect of enjoying some of Killarney’s buzzing nightlife at the height of summer. It was worth it though – it’s amazing how fast your body can metabolise the excess carbs in a pint of stout when you’ve been cycling over a 100km a day for a week and the end is in sight.
Day 7: Killarney – Moll’s Gap – Kenmare – Caha Pass – Glengarriff – Durrus – Barleycove – Mizen Head
Total distance: 123km. Total mountain passes: 2. Total radio appearances: 1. Total bottles of champagne at the finish line: 2. Total hours driving back to Dublin after: 5
The final day. Conventional wisdom is to do this cycle from south to north: Mizen Head to Malin Head, due to Ireland’s prevailing winds being south-westerly. For various reasons we chose to ignore this. I was fine with it, being blissfully ignorant of cycling and prevailing winds and being instinctively drawn to doing things north to south – maybe this is different if you’re from New Zealand or something. But not being from this part – and never having been to the Kingdom and West cork before – meant that the further we went the more adventurous the trip became, saving arguably the best til last with the mountains of Kerry and Cork. By this time news of our adventure had reached local radio stations and our Chief Organiser Mark made a guest appearance from the Van on Cork’s C103FM, helping to promote our fundraising efforts. We’d also blagged some stylish out of date Ring of Kerry cycling jerseys, graciously donated by a shop in Killarney.
The day began with us leaving Killarney through its National Park. A wispy cloud hanging at eye height before the sun rose to inevitably burn it off as we followed the winding well-surfaced road through the forest, up past Ladies View of the lakes below, and through Moll’s Gap before free-wheeling to Kenmare. The Caha Pass between Kenmare and Glengarriff was the second jaw-dropping pass: the view of Bantry Bay with the Caha mountains to the right is one of the finest views I’ve seen on this island. The weather made it but I’ve a feeling so did the 7 days of hard cycling that preceded it, as did the intensity of the team-bonding having pushed ourselves and each other through 7 days of ups and downs and hard cycling. Once out on the Mizen Peninsula it felt a formality to do the last 40km stretch. Our pace didn’t drop despite Google’s description of the route as ‘Mostly flat’ turned out to be tragically, comically so far wide of the mark as to be the running joke – the final of many over a long week – that would take us over the finish line as strongly as we started (if AI is going to enslave us, it’s going to be a long war of attrition down the west of Ireland, as I’ve learned this year that the lady on Google Maps doesn’t get the Irish roads network, and I wouldn’t trust her with anything else). One last visit to the ocean in Barleycove after a bottle of champagne was destroyed (it’s never drank) and some celebratory donuts (fitting).
All that was left then was to drop the van back and go our separate way. It was obviously an enjoyable experience as it unfolded, though it already was apparent to me as we reached the mid-point of the trip that it would a profoundly transformative experience as well. But I’ve learned you can’t analyse these things as you go along - to get the full benefit you must remain present as you engage with the task at hand - reflection and integration can come after.
The best trips are too intensive to think about while you’re in the midst of them - you remain in full flow. This was an intense week, and unpacking and reflecting on it – and resting and recovering and stretching out a body that at this stage felt like a well-played accordion – would take a few days and longer.
If nothing else, it was a good old-fashioned Lads’ Holiday, though the pursuit of Serious Cycling added some maturity to proceedings, without killing its spirit - and it doesn’t need to be anything more.
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Great piece Gav, was a pleasure doing the trip with ya. "Up she flew"