Suddenly Ireland's almost over

Hard to know where the time has gone. We've been here nearly three weeks and in two days this part of the trip is over and it's off to the IoM for the bike races.

Is been a fantastic trip overall. The usual little trials and tribulations of two people traveling in close company and one big one when we managed to drop the bike whilst Megan was getting on to it. Unfortunately she ended up the bottom of the pile, with me and bike on her and consequently had a very sore and stiff leg and knee for the last two weeks. It's now being better but so slowing her down a bit - but she's taken it amazingly stoicly.

The trip itself has been predominantly a tour of the Irish coast heading clockwise from Rosslare where we landed to our current location of Derry. The only significant inland excursion was in the first few days of the trip, when we visited Glendalough, site of a seat of Irish learning in the 9th to 12th centuries, and more importantly for us the name of the farm in Australia that Megan (who is proudly of Irish descent) grew up on and has (until very recently) been in her family for several generations. A few pictures of Glendalough (including of a circular bell tower that are very typical all over southern Ireland) below.

Catch up photos

Just a few photos. For various reasons I haven't been able to be as organise with either my blogging or photography as I would have liked for this trip. You'll just have to accept that Ireland is an incredibly beautiful country and has wonderful scenery around most corners. The trouble is a lot of its panoramas which really don't photo well. Also whilst we've been reasonably lucky with the weather with only a few really wet days there have been a lot of overcast ones - which has also not helped the photo count.

The trips beginning

Well bike is successfully reassembled, and after a 500k test ride I'm reasonably happy it is running OK and is likely to be able to do a few thousand more over the next few weeks without too much risk of problems. Fingers all crossed as I write that.

More importantly my girlfriend Megan has arrived safely in UK. We spent a few days together in Bath and Swansea so she had a chance to get over jet lag and also to meet my family. In fact she got the full whammy of family in one go as both my sons are currently in the UK as well as my father, brothers and their families.

I have to admit some worry at the start of the trip. I don't normally carry a pillion even at home; here on a fully loaded bike is going to be an interesting learning experience. In also in awe of Megan being brave enough to choose to come on this trip with me, given she's only known me a few weeks.