Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is cycle touring in Ireland on Wednesday, 24th-July-2019. Ballymena to Newry. 57 Miles. That was a hard day at the office! That winds been relentless again, hopefully tomorrow it’ll have eased off, or at least changed direction!
I started the day off on a very busy dual carriageway, which really wasn’t much fun, even by my standards I thought it was busy!
It was then that I decided to give Belfast a miss! I couldn’t think of any reason to go there, and it would be a nightmare getting in and out, if the road I was already on was anything to go by!
After that initial start on busy roads, I soon found some quieter ones, although I still had that headwind!
Along The Newry Canal
To be honest I’d had enough about 20 miles back and was even going out of my way to find a campsite! But then I came across the Newry canal way, which was going the direction that I really wanted to go! So balls to the campsite, I started to follow the canal and had a pleasant cycle for the last 20 miles.
The canal has fallen into disrepair and is no longer navigable, but they’ve made good use of the old tow path and made it into an excellent cycle/walking route!
Now I know that I can be a bit slow sometimes, both mentally and physically! But I’ve been wondering why it’s been taking me so long to get anywhere these past two days, wind aside that is. The road signs are all in miles, not kilometres! 20 miles is considerably more that 20 kilometres!
I should be back in the Republic of Ireland tomorrow, and back to kilometres!
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I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Was that fried bread? That’s the thing with your rig – you can’t get down on the bars. So glad you found the canal.
Not that one you wouldn’t!
Yes that was fried bread.
My back wouldn’t allow me to get down on the bars!
Well done, hate that dreaded headwind. Km certainly pass by quicker than MLS lol
So do I, and it looks as if it’s getting even worse tomorrow! Something to look forward to!
I always prefer touring in countries that show the distance in kilometres, it helps psychologically!