“So where are you going tomorrow?”
“Back to Carrick-on-Shannon.
Look, here’s our route”. I point my index finger to the green line on Mark’s
smartphone.
“You’ll be passing by Ballinagh..
Arvagh.. you don’t need to go via Redhills you now, that’s a detour!”
“Well look we mean to take the
scenic route, the country lanes… to avoid the traffic. Not necessarily the
shortest route”.
“I see I see.. you’ll be
travelling via Ballinagh… Arvagh.. you know when I used to work in Sligo I
drove that road every day. Let me have a look. Ey, Redhills? You need not
travel by Redhills you know that don’t you?
It is six o’clock and we’re
having a well-deserved pint of Guiness in “Clones’ best pub” according to the female
teenager Mark had asked for advice in the streets. Along with us and the
furniture we counted the lad behind the bar and a few locals who seemed part
and parcel of the pub’s routine of warming up for the busy night ahead. Along
with a certain fondness of the “holy water” they shared a habit for asking the
same questions and seemingly forgetting about the answers. The bloke I was
talking to, “the happy one” according to Mark, was eyeing me curiously while
asking questions, whereas his facial expression changed to a peaceful gaze whenever
I did the talking, followed up by a broad smile and twinkling eyes when I
finished speaking. According to the lad behind the bar the place would be
buzzing with people and live music later that night. I knew for a given that we
would be sound asleep by then, resting our legs for another 120km on the bikes
the following day. Clones was proving a suitable stop for us to spend the
night; a small village (circa 3k inhabitants) with a few pubs and restaurants
hugging a snug street leading to the village square where a church told tales
hundreds of years back. The hotel we stayed at was full of people eating
drinking and, naturally, spending the night. Clones was hosting a film festival
and appeared bustling with life, a welcome change after a day on the road with
an aggregate of 5 cars counted.
To be honest, the Kingfisher
trail (green = described route, blue = our take), with its winding country lanes and absence of cars was exactly what we
had been looking for. Our previous long distance cycle in Ireland had been from
Belfast to Dublin; a tale of cars and lorries thundering past us on N- and
R-roads whenever we stuck to the route. Diversions into the unknown were not
needed this time as the route, perfectly displayed on Mark’s phone which he had
attached to his bike, was proving exactly what it promised to be; low-traffic
density roads through rural Ireland. Climbing hills overlooking a landscape
dotted with lakes, thundering down gravel roads lined with farms and ruins of
barns and houses that might trace all the way back to the famine 150 years ago,
through pine forests and past hedge-lined meadows, dodging dogs and avoiding
confused sheep, leading us through counties Roscommon, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Cavan and Moneghan, over a road surface that made me cherish my choice for a hybrid
and Mark silently regret the vulnerability of his racing bike, the trail was
all you wish for when discovering Ireland on two wheels. But of course not
everything went well. That would be too easy.
When climbing a hill to a particularly
pretty viewpoint I was distracted by a twig being stuck between my mudguard and
tyre. When I stopped and attempted to remove it, along with the twig appeared a
large thorn that had found its way through my outer tyre into the inner tube.
Pssssccchhhhhhh. It took us (read Mark) not overly long to fix the puncture,
only to find out that Mark’s tyre had undergone a similar fate. After ruining
his only spare tube we set about to fixing the one that had been punctured and
well over an hour later we finally moved on. Frozen, we were. Cold. Very cold,
from the wind and the standing still and more wind. “At least it’s not raining”
I had said repeatedly while looking at Mark struggling with his tyre. 5 minutes
down the road a drizzle started, and 10 minutes later we found ourselves in a
rain shower that the Colombian rain forests would take pride in. We ploughed
on. The ferry the route described could only be booked during weekends, but the
girl on the phone told us (during our lunch break) that the rangers who
operated the unit only worked during the week. So, no ferry, but an N-road
flavoured detour. Let’s say we were happy to arrive in Clones that evening.
Day 2 we managed to stick to the
route, with some gorgeous scenery rewarding us for that choice. Whereas a mild
tailwind had been a welcome help on day 1, that wind had turned stormy and we
were facing strong gusts head first when completing the route from east to west
on day 2. Exhausted but satisfied we arrived in Carrick-on-Shannon, nurtured a
pint of Guiness, and got on the train back to Dublin. And the best part of the
Kingfisher route? There’s a northern loop as well. But let’s save that one for
next summer.
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