Thursday 4th - Friday 5th July

Thursday July 4th
Bantree - Glengariff (start of Beara peninsula)- Adrigole - RossMacown- Castletownbearhaven - Eyeries
Before we left we had to change the front tube due to a small piece of wire puncturing it.
We then rode on the N71 round the end of Bantry Bay with excellent views.
The morning was very overcast and the rain started as we entered the Beara peninsula.
Beara has very rugged landscapes - rocks and grassy bits, very few trees. The many rhododendrons have finished flowering.
Unfortunately there appears to be no place for lunch between Glengariff and Castletown, although Adrigole looked big enough. We were very wet by 2pm and crept guiltily into a chapel to shelter and to eat our soda bread and bananas. Later on we stopped in Murphy's café in Casteletown for soup and sat for ages trying to get dry. Castletown is a big fishing port with many bars and a market, but we were too wet to appreciate it properly.
Eventually we rode up over Steve Mishkish mountains (not very big) to Eyeries for our pre-booked B & B and Inches House. Inches House is also a restaurant on a hilltop above Eyeries. It is run by a young couple who came 3 years ago from England and built two stone houses containing holiday cottages and B & B rooms as well as a conservatory for the restaurant.

B & B John and Maree Angles, Inches Houses, Eyeries, Beara, Cork. 00353 (0) 27 74494.
Distance 37 miles today

Friday July 5th
Eyeries - Ardgroom - Lauragh - Kenmare (Co. Cork - Kerry)
Although the day was overcast at first, it turned out to be sunny for the rest of the day.
Eyeries is a very colourful village on a hill with a bend in the road. Soon after Eyeries, we saw the Egham Stone, but were unable to find the Ardgroom Stone Circle. We took the tiny but very hilly coast route to Ardgroom, taking 3 hours to ride only 11 miles, using our lowest gear several times. We felt we did well on the hills - probably due to our combined weight loss of 30 lbs.

This particular route is labelled as part of the Beara cycle route in a leaflet obtained from the local tourist office. The information given is useless - it doesn't say anything about the time required to cycle the route, but it does tell you where to find the golf courses! Actually we didn't encounter any proper cycle routes on our trip. But in general the cycling is good because the roads are quiet and motorists (even those from the UK) move over to give us a wide berth. The Aran island of Inishmore is an exception - it has terrible drivers who go too fast and don't make room for cyclists. (It doesn't have a car ferry - these are local cars that have been brought in as cargo)
The Beara route way is very pretty with bays, scattered rocks, quite wild and with little boats in coves. The few trees are very small, e.g. holly plus a few conifers. We stopped for a cup of tea offered by an English couple in a camper van.
We bought some lunch in Ardgroom and then found a pretty spot by the water near Laurath to have our picnic.
A bit further on, we spotted a tandem and two solo bikes outside a café and stopped to chat with Bob, Alyson, Peter and Josie from Ashford. We were to meet them again at the top of Molls Gap ad then on the ferry back to Wales.
We decided to stop at a B & B, 3 miles before Kenmare. The landlady's sign advertises evening meals, but she told us to go down the road to get it! We walked up the hill behind the B & B and had nice views of Kenmare River with the Kerry mountains on the other side.
Then we walked down the road to the Sailors Bar for a meal and sat outside in bright sunlight, watching the sunset over the river.

Inches House B&B	Eyeries village
Eyeries village	Ogham stone
Harbour near Eyeries	Beara north coast
Kenmare Bay near Lauragh	Beara donkey
Kenmare bay from Dowros	Kenmare bay from Dowros

Distance 33 miles today
B & B: Mc Carthy, Harbour View, Dowros, 064 41755.