Biking the Green Isle
The Adventures of Will and Patrick Cycling through Ireland

Alright everyone, I’ve finally finished the Ireland video and am posting it here for general consumption. ¬†Be forewarned, this is a 25 minute long video, and as such, make sure you have ample time to view it. ¬†Also, I must¬†apologize¬†for the¬†atrocious¬†quality¬†of the voice over. ¬†It was much better before rendering, and I would be willing […]

Continue reading “Ireland Video (Finally)” »

As I promised, here is a comparison of where we “planned” to go and what actually¬†happened. ¬†As you can see the bike route (marked in red on the new map) is very close to what we planned, this far back at least. ¬†The car route in blue tells a different story and allowed us to […]

Continue reading “GPS Maps” »

Some issues at the airport. I placed the wrong bag in checked baggage and ended up with a bag of metal cables, locks, knives and other sharp tools at the security checkpoint. Thankfully they¬†didn’t¬†make a huge fuss out of it and I just had to go back, check it and pay a ‚Ǩ40 charge for […]

Continue reading “So Long Ireland” »

Well, we’re down to our last real day in Ireland and despite the wind gusting to 60 knots today, we are working to see some of the landmarks around Dublin. We visited the amazing library at Trinity College, which contains the Book of Kells. They¬†don’t¬†allow video or photography, but I did some clandestine work, so […]

Continue reading “Last Day Real Day” »

Well after having¬†absolutely¬†perfect weather yesterday, we now sit drying out in our Dublin B & B. After dropping the car at the airport (which I’m thankful to be able to say we returned it without a scratch despite our harrowing adventures in the west.) we headed out of the airport to look for a hotel […]

Continue reading “Rainy Dublin” »

Today has been beautiful, and thus to save money we are camping one last time. Tomorrow after returning the rental car we will obtain a hotel room, Lord willing, and make plans for our last two days in Dublin. Thank you once again for all of your wonderful comments, it makes the vast distance seem […]

Continue reading “Camping One Last Time” »

As we are winding down our time here in Ireland we’ve set our sights back toward Dublin (the car has to be at Dublin Airport Tomorrow). As such we find ourselves tracing back through some familiar territory, just from a different direction. It is amazing how short some distances are, where before it seemed they […]

Continue reading “Naas is Nice. How ’bout Twice” »

Today we are going to see the Rock of Cashel (pictured below) and while we wait for the gates to be opened we visited another local monument. The Irish seem to have quite a few tragically or at the very least¬†hilariously¬†named places, such as the Island of Muck, the town of Stepaside or the river […]

Continue reading “Tragic Names” »

Well as previously mentioned we visited Blarney Castle yesterday, having driven out of the treacherous Ring of Kerry earlier that morning. It was raining hard, so no iPhone picture, we did however get lots of video and pictures (including Patrick kissing the Blarney Stone. I opted not to press my lips against a rock millions […]

Continue reading “From Kilarney to Blarney” »

Sorry for the short post today, but I’m running out of bandwidth and am hopping on to others wireless signals to get by. This one has us standing in the rain in the town of Mallow. We visited Blarney castle today and got some amazing pictures. More to come later. Also, sorry Noelle no little […]

Continue reading “A Wee Post” »

The Gap of Dunloe that is. The Ring of Kerry is Ireland’s¬†Yosemite¬†and the Gap of Dunloe is an impressive sight to behold. The sheer heights are stunning, accented babbling brooks, wind swept mountain lakes, the softest grass you’ve ever seen and a bountiful array of mountain flowers. Through all this is a steep narrow road […]

Continue reading “Mind the Gap” »

Just a brief post of a castle ruin we found on the highway along the way. Patrick climbed the broken back half to the second floor.

Continue reading “More castles” »

Here it is again. The Word Press blog seems to cut off the picture if too much of a caption is put in. Also Dan, thanks for the correction, and Rachel boo for the bad eighties song reference.

Continue reading “For those who missed the picture” »

Words would fail me were I to describe all which we saw yesterday, but I will try to¬†summarize¬†as best I can. Having camped at an actually campground in Northern Ireland we headed back south the way we had come the day before. The main reason for this retracing of steps was a small coastal town […]

Continue reading “The Cliffs of Insanity!” »

This morning we were blessed with being able to rent a car at one third the rate asked by the local budget thanks to my iphone, the Budget website and a persistent Patrick. I’ve taken to driving on¬†through¬†other side of the road fairly well, even though the Ford Focus we got is a stick. With […]

Continue reading “Hello Northern Ireland” »

It seems county Galway contains more castles than any other part of Ireland. We past by three today as we did our last¬†36 km¬†into Galway thus completing our journey across an entire country. Yeaah! Woo hoo! Ha ha! While we weren’t able to get close to the later two, the first which I later researched […]

Continue reading “Castles?! I’ve Got Your Castles Right Here” »

Last night for only the second time we tried our hand at camping. Having ridden our bikes more than¬†60 km¬†in a day we found the thought of completing the final leg of our¬†90 km¬†journey from Athlone to Galway in the increasing cold of the evening unpleasant. So in the hopes of finding a camp ground […]

Continue reading “Traveling on the Cheap” »

For those who doubt we’re having a great time let me just be perfectly crystal: We are both having a grand time as we ride¬†across¬†the beautiful Irish landscape. Just remember, I love a good challenge, except when death is in the line. Today we road 2/3 of the way from Athlone to Galway and made […]

Continue reading “Having Loads of Fun, Only 2 Things Suck” »

decided Well, not quite. Yesterday in the city of Athlone, Patrick declared it was time that I had a pint. So we stopped into a pub alongside Athlone Castle and Patrick ordered two pints of Guinness. With video camera rolling and still camera clicking I tried my first drink of Ireland’s black brew. Sorry to […]

Continue reading “Brave Sir William Ran Away…” »

Today, marks the first day we found ruins we could actually get to (previous attempts featured a fence and two guns). After leaving the small town of Clara, (which is the town where the Prime Minister is from as well as this post’s pictured church.) We headed for the city of Athlone. We were on […]

Continue reading “We Found Ruins (with a little help from our friend)” »