South and West Ireland - Ged and Lynne 2017: Day 8 Clifden

Leaving the southern counties behind we move into Mayo today, initially travelling through the Connemara National Park. It is our last full day of our journey along the Southwest and West of Ireland following on and around the Wild Atlantic Way.

The sun shone on us again and the Connemara mountains turned out be beautiful with wide open wide valleys and a backdrop of mountains or 'Bens'. Similar in feel though not as high as the Scottish Highlands but no less appealing for that.

Connemara Bens

We followed A59 along the Killary Fjord turning off after the crossing to head west along the north shore on a beautiful lakeside drive before turning north to follow the Doo Lough Pass to Louisburgh. This is a gentle pass and an easy drive with wonderful views in all directions.

Small waterfall at start of Doo Lough Pass

From Louisburgh we headed east hugging the coast to Westport and the N59 north to Newport where we were to stay tonight.

This morning had been planned as a short stage as weather permitting we had planned some bike hire for this afternoon on the Greenway and were on target about midday and the weather was looking good.

The Greenway is built on an old railway bed terminating at Achill and can be joined at various points including Newport. We hadn't really discussed which bit we intended or noted distances but after some consultation of maps decided to drive on to Mulranny from where we could cycle around the north coast of an isthmus leading to the bridge to Achill Island. It appeared about 13km each way and we judged that we'd see how it went and turn back when we thought we'd had enough.

Mulranny - Achill

We drove on to Mulranny expecting to find bike hire places along the main road and a bit of a tourist hub; we should have known better. Lynne had identified one of the companies as favourite but we only saw BIKE HIRE signs referring to behind a hotel which we didn't manage to figure out. We called in the tourist info on the main road and before we really knew it, the lady was phoning for 'James' to come down as we wanted to hire 2 bikes. James, a lovely guy, arrived across the road to a parked up old red van and telling us there was no hurry stood in the back of the van topping up the air in the tyres.
Two workhorse Viking bikes came out, not polished and clean but maintained and solid.
We were assured that he didn't mind what time we returned, if he wasn't there just leave the bikes by the van and if the van was gone, by the wall. He echoed what the info centre had said that everything was safe around here. Helmets and high vis jackets were piled on the seats in the front of the van to rummage through and find your own and then James ensured that our comfy padded saddles were at the right height for us.
There was a breeze blowing, though admittedly not much and Lynne asked which way it was blowing wrt out and back, James' response was, "There's no wind", which we suspect was correct relative to most days.
A simple exchange of €15 each for as many hours as it took us sent us on our way.

We had felt that we'd let ourselves be steam rolled a little but the bikes were great, the price was good and the arrangements perfect. We half wondered if James was related to the lady in the info centre; there was certainly no mention of any other company.

Lynne heading off toward Achill

Shortly after leaving Mulranny on the Greenway we did actually pass the original company that Lynne had identified but we were very happy indeed with our Mulranny Cycles mounts.
About half way, at the northern corner of the isthmus we paused and realised that I thought we were going all the way to Achill but Lynne expected we'd probably turn back part way. In the event, we decided we were fresh enough and the ride was very enjoyable with an easy surface and wonderful views and we continued all the way to Achill.
Passing a sign advertising Kath's Café 200m after the bridge we thought that would do nicely. The Greenway passed a Gallery and Café a while before surfacing onto the big main road which would make a good turn around point and is close to where Google Maps identifies Achill. However, we continued on joining the main road and cycling another km or so downhill to the bridge at Achill Sound which was going to be a long climb on the way back. Even after the bridge, we passed buildings for what seemed more than 200m before finding Kath's hidden, due to being stepped back behind other building at the end of a row. Kath was doing good business and rather than wait for a table we had our welcome pot of tea and shared slices of rhubarb and strawberry crumble and apple pie outside..

Our Viking bikes outside Kath's Café

Suitably fuelled up, we pushed our way back up the main road and returned to the Greenway. The return run was very quiet as I guess most hired bikes were off by now. A popular hire is a drop off or pickup one end.

Greenway heading back to Mulranny

Peat cutting

bike pose

On return to Mulranny we felt surprisingly good and were pleased with ourselves when checking my GPS that we'd cycled 19.5 miles. Those extra kilometres at the Achill end add up.
This part of the Greenway is a lovely ride; there are slopes which sometimes go on for a long time but nothing beyond a 1930's steam engine's capability which was not a lot. And, if you do both ways, every uphill has a downhill. Either way, it passes through some stunning scenery.

Achill Sound

James' van

Bikes returned and left leaning on James' van, we headed to Costcutter for a really good 99 ice cream. It had been a lovely afternoon, bright and warm with quite a bit of blue sky. Temperature about 17C so whilst cycling, just about warm enough for tee shirts though we did don our fleeces a couple of times due to cold breezes off the sea.
We drove the short distance back to Newport and our hotel where our view from our window was down the high street and the town looked lovely in evening sunshine.

Bedroom window view - Newport

After a good meal & bottle of wine to celebrate reaching the northern end of our adventure we took a walk down the high street in tee shirt down to river and seven arches. A very pleasant evening before we commence our journey home tomorrow.