The start of Day 4, Wednesday, was a little groggy to be honest. I know I rolled out of bed at 9 and was not really looking forward to a full day on the bike, mainly because I had just gotten off it 3 hours ago…But, after a cup of tea (borrowing some milk from another hostel guest) and a protein bar, we were packed and heading out. We had changed our route slightly, and were expecting to cut off a little of our drive due to our tiredness, but we were now in Ireland, which means 3 things… Guinness, Whiskey, and winding hillside roads! And that’s what today was full of…

We first decided that we should stay on a little more of a main road to get us going, so we headed towards Cork. We stopped in Dungarvan for a fill up and a full Irish, before heading to downtown Cork to pick up a few wet weather things (that we hopefully don’t have to use). Paul had found out very quickly that his gloves don’t do much against rain after just the 40 minute shower yesterday. The traffic was heavy, and my engine started heating up again sitting in traffic, but we eventually made our way through and out the other side. The rest of the day today would be windy one lane highways or smaller, with no cities in the middle!

We skipped lunch, drove through Bantry, not really following our planned route, and we decided to get head to Healy Pass, a recommendation by Paul. This was the road to get to. The Holy Grail! Up one side with tight bends and bleating sheep, to grab a coffee at the top, from John O’Reilly’s little shack that he had been running for 54 years! We just sat for a few minutes, enjoying the stunning view and a hot drink.

We continued up a little further, and that’s when we got the view from the other side… Wow. We had only gone about 100 feet, and yet we were stopping again to take it all in again. We headed down the other side through a few more towns, to our final destination, a youth hostel in Killarney. Following the GPS, we arrived in someone’s driveway… Not quite what we were looking for. But after both our leader and captain sensible bickering over who knew the way (and asking 3 different people) we did get there. Honestly, Paul and I haven’t stopped laughing at those two going on…

We walked down the road and grabbed more good grub from The Golden Nugget, and a few more pints, before heading to the sack once again.

Our Route for tomorrow.