Newcastle to Dublin

Sunday October 10, 2010
An early start was planned again, but as usual, it didn't quite happen. I got up by about 9:30 am.
This is where I camped but I forgot to take a photo before I took the tent down.

My campsite for the night, behind a couple of houses, in Newcastle, Northern Ireland.

I timed myself between waking up and rolling out, and found it took 1.5 hours, and that's doing everything fairly quickly.

Looking towards Tollymore Forest Park from Bryansford Road, near Newcastle, Northern Ireland.

The riding was quite scenic to start off with, off-road through a forest called Tollymore Forest.

Following a track in Tollymore Forest Park, Northern Ireland.

This forest even had some eucalyptus trees, the first ones I've seen since leaving Australia.

I was excited to see some Eucalyptus trees in the Tollymore Forest Park, Northern Ireland.

There were quite a few paths through this forest, and none of them were signposted with the cycle network route, so I was just trying to follow the right ones using the iPhone with GPS, with a map lacking sufficient detail. This resulted in me taking a wrong turn so I stopped to study the map again, at which point a woman jogging past stopped and asked if I needed any help.
I told her I thought I'd taken a wrong turn, and showed her the map, and explained where I'd come from and where I was going, and she confirmed my suspicion that I'd missed a turn and explained the route I needed to take. I said I was planning to get to Dublin to stay there that night. And guess what she said? "Oh, you won't get to Dublin tonight", she told me matter-of-factly.
"Well thank you for your advice, but no thanks for your pessimism miss" I thought. What I said was different: "Oh...how far is to Dublin, do you know?"
"It'd be a hundred miles to Dublin from here," she replied.
"A hundred miles, what's that...about 160 km...yeah I think I can make it there tonight. I did 130 km yesterday..."
She asked me where I had stayed the previous night, and I couldn't remember, I had a complete mental blank until she suggested Belfast, and I was like "oh yeah, that's right, I was in Belfast that night.
So after a quick chat, she kept jogging, and I went back and took the turn I'd missed.
This track wasn't actually part of the cycling route though, I'd missed a turn somewhere earlier on, and this one was really just a walking track, which I wanted to take because it led back to the cycling route.
Sometimes walking tracks are okay for bikes, but sometimes they have things like steps and all kinds of obstacles which only walkers can get past easily. Unfortunately this one had a few gates and walls in the way! The first obstacle was a rock wall, which had some steps for walkers to get over. With some contemplation, followed by much effort, I lifted the loaded bike over it, ah it's so heavy! Then just further up the track, there was a locked gate. I thought "well, I'm not turning back now after I've just gotten the bike over that wall", so I again lifted the 50 odd kg bike over it, with difficulty, because it's so awkward to lift.
A little further on, another gate, great! I was thinking "there better not be too many more of these!" I lifted the bike over again and luckily this was the last one. Then it was clear sailing, back on sealed roads, and into the scenic Mourne mountains.

The Mourne Mountains from Meelmore Lodge, off Treasey Rd, Northern Ireland.

The Mourne Mountains from Treasey Rd, Northern Ireland. 

A reservoir off Slievenaman Road, in the Mourne Mountains.

The Mourne Mountains from the intersection of Kilkeel Rd and Kinnahalla Rd, Northern Ireland.

The Mourne Mountains from Sandbank Road, Northern Ireland.

After the Mournes just past a town called Rostrevor, I was passed by another cyclist, a road cyclist.

Heading out of the Mourne Mountains, looking back towards Rostrevor.

Looking back towards the town of Rostrevor.

There's nothing like another cyclist to spur you on. I thought "I'm going to try and keep up with this guy, I reckon I can". So I put my head down and chased him down after a few kilometres.
He reckoned I was doing well to be riding at the speed I was (around 30 km/h).
We talked about the usual (where I was from, where I'd been, where I was going, etc).
He talked about some young Irish cyclists, two guys that have been friends for a while, and were in the same year at school, there was always much rivalry between them. One went into mountain biking, and the other into track and road. And now the mountain biker, I think he said, has joined a pro team. He seemed to know quite a lot about racing.
He told me he had a house in Ballycastle (Northern Ireland, I stayed there a night) and that he'd done a four day race across from somewhere to somewhere in Northern Ireland, which he described in some detail. I can only remember that the weather conditions for the race this year were windy and rainy.
This guy reckoned he'd ride about 8000 km in an average year, which would probably be more than I ride each year, although I should easily exceed that this year.
He also gave me some directions on how to get to Dublin, which was useful because I hadn't planned any route past where I was.
I got to Dundalk and didn't know which way to go next. I was about to ride down the main road, the N1, because it looked fairly direct and I just stopped at a roundabout, there happened to be another "cyclist" there. He was a bloke with a bike anyway; he struck me as rather odd. But I asked him for some advice anyway. He reckoned I'd get myself killed if I took the N1. He said he'd ridden it once before, "its busy, it's got pot-holes...it's lethal!" He recommended I take Dublin Road, the R132 which I think was the old road people used to use to get between Dublin and Belfast before the motorway was built.
I was traveling at a good pace for most of the day; I blew my previous highest average speed out of the water, and averaged 21.5 km/h for the day.

The sun setting as I rode through a town called Julianstown, Ireland.

It still got dark before I made it to Dublin though, and about 15 km out, I noticed the back tyre had gone flat, I was pretty angry. The flat tyres all seem to occur gradually rather than suddenly, and I notice them by the bumps on the road being softened and the tyre becoming bouncy.
I tried a quick re-pump of the tyre to see if I could get to Dublin, but it was flat again after just another kilometre or two, I had no choice but to stop and fix it, what a drag! I found two punctures, both caused by big thorns.
Forty-five minutes later I was back on the bike, and cruised into Dublin.
I found some Wi-Fi and spent quite a while researching hostels, I wanted to get a good one after my experience in Belfast!
Tough choice, since a lot of them seemed to be really good, but settled on Avalon House. Turned out to be pretty good, not perfect but can't complain about too much, the biggest issue I had was that my dorm was I was on the third floor, and it was a real struggle to walk up the stairs multiple times, and with my bags, after such a long day on the bike.
I ate the rest of my jam on the rest of my bread for tea.

Thickly-spread jam on bread for tea in the hostel.

But was still hungry so I just went to subway, and in there I came across the Canadian guy who I'd met in Paddy's Palace in Belfast, the one who nobody else liked, and he was with his girlfriend. What are the chances, eh?
I rode back to the hostel and was very much looking forward to a well-deserved sleep.

Ride Stats
Distance: 161.74 km
Average: 21.5 km/h
Maximum: 60.9 km/h
Time: 7:29:58