Thursday May 24

Another beautiful day in the neighbourhood!  Bike ride to Gougane Barra from home (Killarney). We found a relatively quiet way through town and out towards the national park. We were on a mixture of bike paths and road as we were coming out the south end of town. Perhaps we stayed on the sidewalk a bit too long after the proper bike path ended. In fairness, the demarc wasn’t terribly clear in some places. One of our riders crashed into a post on the sidewalk and got pretty banged up. She’s tough, though. Cleaned up the scrapes and carried on. A week later, we’re thinking she’s probably broken a bone in her wrist. In the meantime she’s carried on cycling every day.

We wound through some back roads, a short stretch on the busier N22, then more back roads towards the turnoff to “the highest pub in Ireland”.  Pretty ride through the countryside and past Lough Guitane and the Roughty River.

Quite a long climb, but a reasonable grade and a few short breaks on the way up. Ron, Gary, Nada and I were first up. It so happened that there was a publicity photo shoot underway when we arrived and we were recruited to participate. Tea & biscuits were our reward.

ps - that’s not my bike in the photo.

After eating our lunch at the top, admiring the sweeping views,

We headed off on another minor road that offered lots of lovely views.

In some of the pictures there are stones in the foreground.  Lots and lots of stone fences throughout the land. They are (almost) all finished with a pattern of vertically placed stones on top.

A little further on we had the option of a 21km loop ride around Lough (Irish for “lake”) Allua. Nada, Ron, Gary and I rode the loop. Sherry, Irene and Trudy headed for Gougane Barra, where Dave would be picking us up with the van and trailer.

We made it to the Gougane Barra Hotel in good time and met up with the rest of the group there. What a lovely setting!  A hotel, coffee shop/bar and a beautiful little church & graveyard on a little point. We did a quick walk around and then inside for a refreshment as it started to rain a bit.

Dave was kind enough to retrace our steps on the small roads so that some could have a pint, and buy t-shirts at Ireland’s highest pub. It was a late arrival home, so we picked up pizzas on the way in to town. Another great day!

Stats for the day:
84.28 km
2896’ up; 2594’ down