Mayan Prophecy Countdown

I had a bit of time before breakfast to sneak in a quick cache search, it was only 100m away up the hill to the memorial for a local bloke, right next to where I was staying. The views from up there were good and I could see my ferry parked up at the wharf. The cache was an easy one to find, so a good start to the day.

What was not so good was the thing that I had spotted when I checked my bike this morning. The oiler I had installed has been working for about 2000km and I thought the lack of oil visible on the chain was due to all the rain washing it away. But, on closer inspection, it seems the plastic oil feeder tube had snapped off at the join into the nozzle dispenser, bummer, it was just sitting there dripping oil everywhere but the chain 😦 I had a spare nozzle but not the time to install it, so I fired off an email to the company to ask what could have caused that. There did not seem to be any excess strain nor pressure on any of the parts that I could see. I will have to find a nice place to park up in Ireland to get the new nozzle on, for the moment I lubed the chain with the can I have as backup.

So, after brekky it was off into the small queue, pay at the door and onto the ferry pretty quick smart. In fact I had only just found a seat when it was off and running to Ireland.

The trip only took 3 hours and I was soon off the ferry and waiting in the rain while the customs chap got friendly then took my passport away for a stamp 🙂 I had no real destination, I just figured I would head south along the coastal route and see what happens and where I get to. It was raining, so no change there then, but as I went further south it seemed to clear up with just the occasional light shower, so maybe things are changing for the better.

I took a small diversion to find some food and did find some at a small chippy at a castle area near a lake, tourists by the bucket load here!! The snags were OK but I still cannot get used to these large fat chips, I guess I am used to the skinny ones I grew up with 😉

I headed off again, but due to all the people around at the last stop I needed to stop again, and used this opportunity to install the new oiler nozzle. It did not take long and I used extra care with the positioning, lets see what happens. With the nozzles costing $15E each, I cannot afford a new one every 2000km, as I might as well buy a new chain, but I am hoping that the breakage was caused by a small branch in the road I ran over yesterday that flicked up, that I recall.

I kept on going south, I had checked the map I had with me and I liked the sound of Cork, so I used that as my destination, not the town, just the county, it would keep me going in the right direction and was far enough away for me to cover some distance and see some things. Along the way, I spotted this metal tree, there was no sign nor info about it, it was just there in a well maintained little grassed and fenced off area by the side of the road!!!

Looking at the leaves, they seem to be farm implements, very weird! It was here I checked my oiler again and found the new nozzle had also snapped off, WTF, something was seriously wrong with the install, I cannot fathom what could cause this, so now I was back to canned chain lube until I work out a fix. I kept on moving and decided to try looking for a cache to cheer me up, I took the very small coastal roads to get to one and noticed a boat parked on the side of the road, hopefully the tide does not get that high in this area!!! But, as you can see the sun is shining, things are looking up 🙂

I soon came to a small harbour town and after a false start found the cache quite easy, in fact it was out in the open for anyone to spot, so I covered it a bit better after signing the log of my first Ireland cache. Then I checked out the little fishing harbour, those boats look like they can handle rough weather, which can be seen in the distance and heading my way!

It was now 5.30pm and about time I started to look for a place to stay. I was cruising up the main street of a small town which had a well advertised pub, I mean massive signs saying the famous whatever, and then I spotted a B&B pub style building with a courtyard parking, so as it turns out I checked in there at Tattans, it felt good 🙂 Then I walked down to the Thatch Pub for a beer, just a Carlsburg, and found out that Saturday night here will be quiet, all the locals go to other towns, doh!!! And the horse racing was on TV, reminded me of the BT back home, so after two quick beers and a chat with the cute serving chica, I decided on an early night, a Chinese takeaway from up the street, relax and read a book for a change – Death Gate Cycles- Book 6 🙂

It may sound like a boring way to spend a Saturday night I guess, but to me every day on the road has been a Saturday night, or a Friday 😉 So, this is my rest day and I needed to think on a few things. I would head to the west tomorrow and maybe go look at the Ring of Kerry, a few people had mentioned it in posts and emails, but after looking at the map, I noticed there was a place called Blarney nearby, I wonder if that is the location of the famous Blarney Stone? Tomorrow I would go find out. Just for the record, it is not my fault but where I am staying, is in a small town called Killeagh, about 20km from Cork. Cork has just recovered from the worst floods in living memory, it only happened two days ago, at the same time that North England and Scotland were getting hammered, so were they over here. They say this is the wettest summer on record, the wettest May and June, and it is not looking good for riding weather and tomorrows forecast is grim. But, I was warm and dry at this moment and that is what counts, tomorrow is another day 🙂

Cheers from Killeagh, Ireland
TravellingStrom