Summer is for riding but isn’t it rude to be away for your partner’s birthday year after year just because it coincides with riding season? This year the solution was to book a flight for Christopher and pick him up at Belfast Airport for a week of riding in Northern Ireland and Donegal.
Being Game of Thrones fans we set out to try and find various filming locations. Sometimes they were clearly marked but sometimes it was rather dubious what was actually filmed there. This beach was absolutely precious but I’m not sure what scenes could have been filmed here, possibly something to do with the dark lord being born. We came badly prepared and mainly just used the theme as an excuse to go places. For the serious fan, there is plenty on the internet to help in the hunt of Game of Thrones filming locations.
We also rode to see the Giant’s Causeway, which I knew nothing about and probably would have passed (lots of tourists) if it hadn’t been for Christopher who insisted we see it. So we went to see it from a lookout point. Then I thought it was enough but Chrstopher insisted we needed to go down and touch the stones and he told me the myth about the giants who built the cause way to be able to meet, or was it fight (?!) and that the stones were hexagons. Well well, the list of things I do for love now also include walking in baking sun to see hexagon stones together with a horde of people. The only reason this was better than my visit to Stonehenge 15 years ago was that it made Christopher happy and we didn’t pay an entrance fee.
We used a hostel in Derry as the base for our excursions. This was convenient, since I had all my camping gear and between the two of us we have more luggage than we can fit on the bike. Poor guys who shared our dorm in the hostel, our bags and gear took up most of the floor. The location proved to be good, we did rides both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland, all in all 5 rides – all on fantastic roads and breathtaking scenery. Apparently ,we were lucky with the weather as well, it was windy and we had occasional rain but that is only to expect on a green island.
We did an amazing ride on tiny roads in the Sperrin Mountains, roads too small to find on my map. Christopher did some photo shoots of me riding and we saw some sheep on the loose but hardly any other vehicles. However, we did see a runner, lucky guy! And on second thought, lucky us being on a motorbike 🙂
Ireland has plenty of beautiful beaches, however, at least for us we suspect that the weather will never be warm enough to use them. Others might dissagree, we did see swimmers. And with the wind it must be great for surfing.
This is in Donegal just before a very heavy rain struck us. The mountain reminds me of Mt. Fuji. The weather can change quickly in the mountains and it did so very dramaticlly. Luckily, we had just finished our coffee. Unlucky that I took the wrong decision regarding the rain gear 😛
After a fantastic week riding together I dropped Christopher off at Derry Airport for his return to London. I rode south alone and got back to camping and feeding off tinned food. The luck with the weather was over, from now on it was heavy rain and heavier rain and an occasional sprinkle of rain and glimpse of sun.
