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#11226515 06/04/16
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Goin' to London Heathrow on a big jet plane, never let 'em tell ya that they're all, aaall the same.

Developing.....


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So you are leaving on a jet plane, do you know when you will be back again, surely you have to know?



Probably lost on the young.


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bobbies on bicycles two by two....


Originally Posted by jorgeI
...Actually Sycamore, you are sort of right....
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Ahh!! Memories! Spent a lovely 13 hours at Heathrow once!


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Originally Posted by JSTUART


So you are leaving on a jet plane, do you know when you will be back again, surely you have to know?



Probably lost on the young.



Got your bags packed? Is it early morn? Is the taxi waiting? Is he blowing his horn?


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Heathrow. Very big. Lot's of terminals. Not sure the underground connects to Heathrow. Have fun. Say hello to Scotland for me.

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Originally Posted by kwg020
Not sure the underground connects to Heathrow.


It does. It takes about 45 minutes to get into central London.

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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Goin' to London Heathrow on a big jet plane, never let 'em tell ya that they're all, aaall the same.

Developing.....


tell robert and jimmy i said hi


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If you got a kukri in your luggage... they gonna pull you away from the other passengers, open your bag, and ask you what is going on. Better have a good answer!!! grin

BTDT.


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Originally Posted by Oldman03
If you got a kukri in your luggage... they gonna pull you away from the other passengers, open your bag, and ask you what is going on. Better have a good answer!!! grin

BTDT.


For opening cans, officer. It's from when I was in the Gurkhas, honest! blush

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Originally Posted by jorgeI
...Actually Sycamore, you are sort of right....
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Finally got to throw a leg over a bicycle today, and spend the day on it.

I'm out of shape, compared to 2014, and was huffing and wheezing and suffering leg cramps at times. A whole lot hillier over much of it than my last epic ride, Hey never let ANYONE try to tell you you don't need uber-low gearing for stuff like this, that 20 tooth granny I had to send away for plus that 13-36 cassette in back allowed me to stay on board instead of getting off and walking.

So 65 miles today, Blackpool to Ambleside via Lancaster, Kendall and Windermere. Ambleside being at the north end of that famous (over here) body of water.

Gonna try and head for the old Roman Forts/Hadrian's Wall around Haltwhistle tomorrow. Only fifty miles but incorporates two serious 1,500 to 2,000 foot climbs over passes on just Day 2 which is like the pits when you are worn out from the unaccustomed mileage on a Day 1.

I'll see how it goes.

No time just now to post pics, dunno when for sure when I'll be back online.

Birdwatcher



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Day 2 update: turns out my beloved 20 tooth granny was incompatible when cranking up a hard climb, a thing that had not been apparent around San Antonio. Replacement with a 22 tooth kept me at Ambleside until after 1pm.
Hard climb over kirkstone pass, out through ulswater and then hard climb up to halford summit in the north Pennines. Maybe a 30 mile day. Overnighted on the summit, free 7 mile roll to Alford in the Tyne valley.

Turning north now towards hadrian's wall and Scotland. 7:30am here.




"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Day 3 Update; Heavy rains on and off all day.

It did clear for a visit to Hadrian's Wall and the Roman Army Museum. Phenomenal! Turns out Hadrian was a queer as a three dollar bill as we used to be allowed to say, so maybe this can be a diversity monument.

Ended up on a very busy "A" road in heavy rain with traffic only inches away, near-suicidal, so bailed early at 6:30pm despite having more'n three hours of daylight left. Came across a B&B in Brampton immediately stopped right there.

Have decided to spend less time in Scotland and angle northwest past Glasgow and Loch Lomond, to reach the Kintyre Ferry to Ulster that way. 240 miles from here, five or six days prob'ly. Two weeks in Ireland after that might leave me time for Normandy.

"Wild Camping" is legal in Scotland, especially for travelers such as myself. Might be off the 'net for a bit.

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Sounds like the weather is a factor, somewhat.

Excellent game plan though! smile

Hang in there and be safe!


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The weather is indeed a factor. 12 noon and just entered Scotland at very suburban Gretna.

Stopped in at first place which has a "full Scottish breakfast", which looks exactly like the English version except the black pudding is called "haggis" and tastes rather like meatloaf.

20 miles in 2 hrs despite frequent map checks, navigation should now be much easier alongside the innerstate to Glasgow. Plus they don't call em the Scottish lowlands fer nuthin, easy going on a bike.No rain yet tho I expect to be seriously wet later.


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Cool trip!

Keep the updates coming.


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Nice, Birdy!

Be interesting to see how that stretch of GB compares to the Meth West...err, Mid West here in the USA.


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My grandfather came from Kilmany, wonder if you will be around there at all.


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"And I remember that London vacation it was you made the whole thing a ball
There's a million good times I could dwell on
But baby you are my favorite memory of all"- Merle Haggard

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Saw Trump was in Scotland...

Were they impressed?


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Saw Trump was in Scotland...

Were they impressed?


Had a lively conversation with a Scottish gentleman today about that very thing.

Trump is viewed inside Scotland as a buffon and a bully, largely because of his attempts to co-opt the sacred institution of golf. I forget what estate he tried to buy on the East Coast here where locals refused to sell despite being offered 10x the market value of their properties, or so the story goes.

On the estate he DID buy, he has had the temerity to actually alter two holes on a fine old course, which my source informed me should only have been done if dictated from Heaven by the Almighty Himself grin

So ya, right now, Trump has 'em PO'd and my impression already is that I don't think folks here get un-PO'd all that easily.

Meanwhile the Brit press openly ridicule Trump and the readers believe it.

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Quote

Be interesting to see how that stretch of GB compares to the Meth West...err, Mid West here in the USA.


Southern Scotland looks like somewhere in the US... lots of open, rolling country, not many people.

They have Rednecks there, Scottish Rednecks, who have quasi-legal car races involving both pavement and mud where guys flog these little imports half to death leaving various parts scattered along the course. Family and friends line the course, sitting in vehicles so they can leave if the Cops show up. Seen it happen.

Someone needs to do an anthropological study on this, Lowland Scotland is where America originated, at least those parts of America we here cherish.

JMHO,
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The Scots lowlands are where the Southern culture came from. Find a copy of "The History of the Scots Irish People" . Univ. N. Carolina press I think; a stunning read.

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Quick Recap:

Day Four, 65 miles across the Scottish Borderlands, was blown away by the unexpected beauty of the place, and the space. Lots of open farmland, grazing land and forests here. GREAT conversations with the locals en route. To me it felt a lot like being in America.

Finally quit and pitched in a quiet spot just outside of Crawford in Lower Lanarkshire, became acquainted with the Scottish midge, hordes of 'em, tiny little guys. I dunno which is more.... the total number of stars in the universe or the number of midges in Scotland around any given campsite.

Day Five (today), Glasgow is a whole 'nother world. An all-White city for those interested, but lots of hard folk, reserved and taciturn with outsiders.This in sharp contrast to the Scots in rural areas.

Like any big city, go through the wrong areas and problems are readily evident. I was advised not to let my bike or my gear out of my sight for a moment, anywhere in Glasgow, and I'd believe it.

Met some friendly folks there too, including some tatooed druggies, and quite a lot of middle aged guys walking home drunk from pubs (was there a game on?).

I did notice that Scottish women are pretty.

The people who put up the bicycle route signs need to be shot (metaphor), four hours lost in the city today, trying to follow them signs through a maze, including places where ya REALLY didn't want to leave your bicycle, or even ride it while still sitting on it.

I survived, finally whipped out the ol'iphone and opened the app instead of trying to do it old school. Shoulda done that much earlier. Found downtown about 5:30, checked into a hotel around six. I still had to navigate back out of the city while losing light and in the rain, so I opted for a hotel. Fifty miles of useful distance today, at least another ten of wasted meanders.

Prob'ly best to avoid big cities from here on in.

Was blown away looking at the map that Edinburgh is only SIXTY MILES east of here, and the road that leads through the boonies down the remote Kintyre Peninsula I intend to ride down begins just fifty miles away to the Northwest, I could be there tomorrow. Amazing.

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Makin' some time now! (miles)

Glad you noticed the Scot women. I agree. smile

But, may be a bit prejudiced as both sides of my family are Scot. If you get my McLeod Castle, I'd grin if you took a pic. wink


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Heading our from this warm and dry refuge in a little bit.

Looking ahead it does appear I'm gonna be wet as a futhamucker (old Celtic term meaning "a lot" or "really") these next few days.

I gotta say doing this bicycle thing does skirt the fringes of homelessness. Being dripping wet everywhere ya go all the time doesn't help that impression any.

'nother thing is, here in the UK the tents are all fabric with only small amounts of screening. My REI Quarter Dome is all screening with only small amounts of fabric. The former is for a cool, wet climate, the latter is essentially a bug shelter, coverable with a fly. What you want for most of the US in summer.

Means that in the rain, in the short interval 'tween pitching the tent and setting the fly, the inside of the tent is getting wet. Oh well, I got wool, pretty sure I can stave off actual hypothermia crazy

Anyhoo.... once I clear Glasgow navigation gets a whole lot easier.

See ya when I have both time and the 'net together in the same place again.

Birdwatcher


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Glad you noticed the Scot women. I agree.

But, may be a bit prejudiced as both sides of my family are Scot. If you get my McLeod Castle, I'd grin if you took a pic.


My students are like 80% American Mexicans....

What I tell them quite often is....

"The women in Mexico are very good-looking.....

....because they send all the ugly ones here."
grin


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Glasgow, 2.1 million in the metropolitan area, overwhelmingly White, but White as I've always said never counted fer much over here in a World where everybody was White. Glasgow is Irish Catholic and Scots-Irish Prod. Tough people there, the appelations "White and Nerdy"do not apply. Its tribal; Celtic. Tough people with pinched and stern expressions, where most of the men look like they've been around a fight or three and still could, and where the women look the same.

The Scottish are even more crazy about their dogs than the Brits, and I didn't believe that possible. Most everyone walking a dog here, and that universal marker of the dumb thug underclass, the pit bull, is much in evidence. Got in a conversation with a couple of pretty and tough women, Scots, mother and daughter with a pit on a leash, and told 'em about the problems here... "Och nooo!" they laughed "he wouldna hurt a fly!" I wanted to say "until he does" but just let it go.

But things is getting much better in Glasgow, formerly the "murder capital of Europe", the "booze and blades" culture.I credit the internet and travel with much of that. In the UK of my youth, travelling even a 100 miles was a big deal, you spent most of your life on your own street.

Seems like Brits travel now more than we do, I ain't been in any gathering where at least a couple haven't been to America. And for better or worse the 'net has gotten us all out of our regional funk.

Where savage hatred within Glasgow still goes, or so I'm told by the locals, is between the fans of Glasgow football. There are two teams here; Glasgow Celtic, supported by the Irish Catholics, and Glasgow Rangers, supported by the Scots-Irish.

At Rangers' Ibrox Stadium, the Union Flag and Ulster banner are often displayed, whilst at Celtic Park, the Irish tricolour prevails.

In the past decade the Rangers had declined to a lower league and so the two clubs played each other less often, lately however the Rangers are coming back up. Matches are still police-heavy events, be interesting though to see the effect of these moderating times.

Met a triathlete on the bike path through Glasgow, a Prod from Belfast who teaches overseas.we talked bikes and travel and politics for more'n an hour. He's had two bikes stolen in as many years and he's careful with his bikes, can't train as much in winter on account of danger of assault. But Glasgow didn't scare him he said on account of he was raised in Belfast.

I told him how I understood the slap in the face felt by the British Subject Ulster Prods when the Irish flag is flown on certain days over the Ulster seat of government. Yes, he said, but people gotta realize the world is always changing, and ya can't go though life trapped by the past.

Words to live by. Meanwhile I'm just grateful never to have been a part of it.

An easy day yesterday, getting out of Glasgow to the west was a whole lot easier than coming in from the east, and pretty Loch Lomond less than 25 miles from downtown. Easy ride too, along the Clyde and Forth Canal and then up the River Leven maybe five miles to the main lake. All the fishing I have see in the UK is catch and release, and there were fishermen along the Leven too, after salmon but able to keep sea trout if they caught 'em.

On the way I met Leon, a retired Royal Marine and a couple of teachers and a bunch of teenagers doing what called part of the Prince of Edinburgh challenge, in this case for cross country bike travel. Turns out you can ride that canal all the way across Scotland, which is only 60 miles 'tween Glasgow and Edinburgh.

We shared a congenial campsite, the kids as part of the test have to bring their own provisions, but us adults went to a fine restaurant where I had chicken stuffed with haggis (drossauch??? I forget the name), it was very good.

Eating a late breakfast here in Bollach, at the foot of the loch, surprisingly quiet being as its only 25 miles from a major urban center.

Into the highlands proper today, where the distances ain't that far but the grades are steep, the midges many, and the services few.

I learned that the ferry to Ireland from Campeltown ain't run in 20 years. Hence I will be forced to take the ferry from the Kintyre peninsula to Arran, past all them distilleries, and then across to the mainland by ferry again. 60 miles above the Belfast ferry near Stranraer.

I have been advised to stock up an everything I need while here in a reasonably supplied town.

So looks like the next few days I really will be off of the 'net.

Birdwatcher


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Well dang, had to turn around to find the 'net again to pay my bills back in Texas.Might be after the 1st when I can get back online.

Besides the uncertaintly around the Brexit consequences, the UK is reeling right now...

The European Cup right up there with the World Cup around here, and like the World Cup is played every four years. So every two years its either the World Cup or the European Cup.

Scotland didn't even qualify but England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland did. The Euro Cup was even pushing Brexit off of the front pages in the weeks before that vote.

Wales knocked out Northern Ireland.

France knocked out the Republic of Ireland.

...and England just got beat last night by ICELAND!!! shocked shocked



Iceland (pop. 330,000) is like the size of Cleveland and shouldn't be still in it at all, but it is cool Musta been some serious celebrations in Reykjavik last night.

Next up for Iceland is playing the home team France in the quarter final, Sunday 2pm central time.

I'm pulling for Iceland.

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Originally Posted by ingwe
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Thread title Root. This picture. I think we won't comment.


We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
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Thread title Root.


"Roots", there's a difference.

Stopped to eat in Tarbot near top of Loch Lomond, wifi again. Travelling on a bike its all about the calories.

Folks keep saying there's no services on this route, ain't been true yet.

5:00pm, gotta do some serious Highland climbing to get over to the coast 14 miles away. Five hours of daylight plus two hours of twilight remaining. Nother 60 miles along the coast to Claonaig and the Arran ferry. Road quality unknown.

I plan to get over the pass and then push on along the coast of Kintyre until whupped tonight, arrive at the Claonaig ferry tomorrow.

Turns out the Campbeltown ferry to Ulster still runs, 12 passengers at a time. I'll call 'em from Claonaig where the Arran ferry docks and if I can get on the Ulster ferry the next day push on the final 30 miles to Campbeltown.

Picked up a headnet for the midges tonight, supposed to be ferocious on the coast.

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I know.... but I was playing...

Always enjoy reading your trip stuff!


We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
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Change in plans, hostelling it at Inveraray tonight, then two days to cover the 88 miles to the Campbeltown Ferry down the Kintyre Peninsula.

Scotland rocks.

Scotland has two kinds of weather; raining and about to rain, all courtesy of the Gulf Stream. Gives insight as to why Highlanders clung to edged weaponry so long; I'd have problems getting a flinter to go off too.

If you're good with 60F - 40F weather you'll like it here.

Currently I'm staying over at Inveraray, the tradional home of the Cambells and the Dukes of Argyl, towards the top end of the 40 mile long sea Loch Fyne. Friggin' beautiful as applies to most of Scotland.

...and strangely tropical. Due to the Gulf Stream and topography this area is less likely to freeze, and is home to a number of noted public gardens featuring some tropical plants.

The Highlands are not as steep or as forbidding as some mountains in the US, the weather is moderate, never extreme cold or heat

Coulda booked the Campbeltown ferry for Friday but I don't mind staying an extra day, I could easy spend the whole month in Scotland but I still got Ireland, Normandy and back up England on the table.

Will try and catch up on pics today.

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Day 9 Update, which was the 6/28 here.

In the afternoon the ferry called, said the Saturday ferry was cancelled due to the forecast. See the Cambeltown - Ballycastle ferry is small, only holds eleven passengers and no vehicles.

75 miles from Inveraray (rhymes with "Tipperary") to Cambeltown, might've been too much in a day here, so I had to head out same day.

45 miles by dark, finally stopped for the night at the Kennacraig ferry landing and wild camped, as one can do in Scotland. This here is a Hebrides ferry.

[Linked Image]

Rain in the night, 30 miles the next day along the coast into a constant headwind and intermittent heavy rain. Warm and dry in the hostel at Cambeltown now, but I'm fixing to get wet again in the morning.

50 degrees and wet is prob'ly gonna be my way of life for the next ten days in Ireland. Ain't fatal but takes a bit of getting used to.

Got lots of pics when I get time, but in the meantime.....

Scotland is a tiny country (six million??). Never mind how we popularly regard it, in reality its heavily socialist, far to the Left and going broke.

But, it still has the toughest money in the World... grin

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Day 1....

That used to be a Fish and Chip Shop fifty years ago, where my dad kept a baseball bat behind the counter for rowdy drunks, that window above was us lads' bedroom window....

[Linked Image]

Half mile away, North Pier. We used to build carts out of discarded baby carriage wheels and as well as use 'em to carry holidaymakers bags at the train station for tips we would lay on 'em and roll 'em down that cobblestone ramp eek, I left considerable skin there back in the day.

[Linked Image]

Eight miles away going north, the ferry at Fleetwood...

"Knott End" would be that sandbar right across the way... grin

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Day 1 crossing the Fylde....


[Linked Image]

English place names are very old, for example this is where....

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runs into....

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Maybe it was the site of an ancient Irish diversity celebration I dunno. Prob'ly ended in violence.


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Mike - you are twisted! smile

(In a good way)


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If you go see the head dyke and end up with a green dick, you'd likely end up at the pharmacy!


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Day 1, Lancaster to the Lake District....

Morecambe Bay fishing boats at Lancaster, the bay is wide, shallow and full of sandbars....

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[Linked Image]


Canals are still the most beautiful and utilitarian legacy of the Industrial Revolution, this here is the Lancaster Canal getting me past Lancaster....

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Seems like almost all the freshwater fishing in the UK is catch and release, for anything.

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Finally to the Lakes.... a 65 mile day.

[Linked Image]



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Day 2... Lake Windemere at Ambleside in the morning...

[Linked Image]

Heading out that morning I had a chainring malfunction, needed another, these guys were outstanding :coo:

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"The Struggle", so identified by road sign, the three-mile shortcut from Ambleside up to Kirkstone Pass, about like climbing a three mile flight of stairs. Hey, walking is my lowest gear....

[Linked Image]

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I dig the Highland cattle.

Use to ride Rist canyon outside of Fort Collins. There were a couple little ranches up there with the shaggy looking beasts. They look prehistoric when the snow is falling on them.


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Kirkstone Pass...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

..and the obligatory inside-of-a-fifthteenth-century-pub photo....

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In Glenridding, a sign that might not fly here...

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England ain't very big; twenty-five miles later I ended the day atop Hartside Summit in the Pennines....

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That's it fer now, more later.

Birdwatcher


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Completely-friggin'-awesome crossing to Ballycastle, Ulster from Campbeltown, Scotland 7:30am to 9:30am. The regular ferry was broken so we took the 34 ft enclosed-cabin powerboat instead cool Exactly two passengers; me and a local from Ballycastle.

Got pics, will post when I get time.

Meanwhile here in Ballycastle the whole town has public wi-fi (Ballycastle free wifi), how cool is that?

Sitting in a cafe by the harbor figuring my next move while a heavy rain washes the saltwater off of my bicycle.

Birdwatcher





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Excellent adventure continues!

Thanks for the pics, and stay safe, Mike!


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[Linked Image]


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Mike

Enjoying the photos!

Jeff


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Quote
Enjoying the photos!


I'll fess up.... I myself prefer Ingwe's.

Anyhoo....

Set out in intermittent rain today around noonish after sitting in a very friendly restaurant next to the harbor eating inexpensive food (here they call it the "Big Fry").

Typical Irish weather I guess, somewhat warm when the sun was out, but cold when it rained, at one point I was getting hit with actual friggin' sleet.

I stopped in at a small town and got a haircut. Funny thing happened when I got off the ferry; I seem to have lost the ability to understand spoken English. Anyhoo in conversation with the barber and his friends it came out that there was no camping or even hotels further along my planned route that day.

Ulster ain't Scotland, or even England, and I'm in the Belfast/Loch Neagh orbit - lots of higher dollar country homes. That and the intensively farmed land means there just ain't many places one can quietly setup a tent by the roadside overnight without drawing attention.

The barber quietly called around and found me a hotel room in a classic old hotel here in Maghera (pronounced "Maheraah" with a slight gutteral "g" in that "h" sound).

"The flags will be out in Maghera" today said one of the barber's friends, "lets burn 'em" said another, everybody laughed.

Checking in the hotel I see a number of armed Police standing in an intersection. A bit later I hear fifes and drums, the hotel concierge tries to discourage me from going outside and watching.

It was an Orange Order parade, the Prods. The barber and his buddies were most likely of Catholic roots.

Up the hill in impeccable military precision came the parade; the flags, the fifes, the drums, the rows of guys in suits and bowler hats, children among the band too. All were grim faced and dead serious. two sets of women and kids followed along the sidewalk, waving Union Jacks.

Massive indifference on the part of the townspeople, at least where we were, perhaps this is a Catholic area. Even the drivers being held up reacted neutrally for the most part, like we would if we encountered a slow-moving piece of farm equipment or something.

The parade passed and went off around a corner, a few minutes later the sound of sirens, unknown if they were related to the parade.

A few minutes later along comes another parade unit, equally serious, up that same hill, this one turning right in front of the hotel. A pack of maybe fifteen motorcycles following slowly close behind, a sort of security one assumes. Following them, a police cruiser, lights flashing.

Again, massive indifference on the part of the crowd, tho' two teenagers passed me were quietly cursing the marchers. Then an older guy started loudly heckling the parade, a Cop went and stood by him.

Sad thing was from my perspective; there were kids in that parade, and kids on the sidewalk too.

Anyways, about a 40 mile day today.

Gonna have to plan my route carefully here w/respect to end-of-the-day stops.

Birdwatcher








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Day 3: Whupped after the day before, plus the first week of a bike tour is always the hardest.

Early morning on the Pennines, my tent, 40F, blowing mist, I kept expecting Tim the Enchanter to show up.....

[Linked Image]

...and an intro to these big fugging slugs which are absolutely all over Northern England and Scotland, besides the slugs themselves worst thing is they leave slimy trails of black slug crap on your tent.

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[Linked Image]

Up top was a cafe (closed when I was there, I got in late and left way early), in front of the cafe was a row of benches looking to the Northwest towards Scotland and the distant sea.

This road is real popular among motorcyclists, and it came as a shock to realize those benches were memorials to people who had died up there, put up by relatives and friends. Most were motorcycle wrecks.

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An easy but chill seven mile roll down the east side of the Pennines to breakfast in Alston....

[Linked Image]

..then turning north towards Northumbria, Haltwhistle, and Hadrian's Wall...

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Me on Hadrian's Wall. If it appears sunny note that I am wet. It had just rained and my day would end a short time later in a deluge on a crowded, narrow "A" road seemed like mere inches from passing semis I weren't looking to stay in hotels but when one came along I took it.

[Linked Image]

As one might expect, Hadrian's Wall, old as it is, exists only in scattered sections today, near Haltwhistle is a pretty good section along a ridge, here looking north towards the savage lands of the blue-painted Picts.

[Linked Image]





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Entered Scotland the morning of Day 4, Gretna...

[Linked Image]

If they go independent it sure will be a project to put in an functional border.

To get it out of the way, right away, a haggis medley....

Right across the road from the sign, just barely in Scotland, haggis hiding under the beans...

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A pop quiz from Crawford; identify these a) a square b) black pudding and c) haggis

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Haggis haute cuisine from Balloch; chicken stuffed with haggis, I forget the name, but it has two syllables and ends with the usual gutteral Scottish "och"....

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And finally, Cambeltown, going boldly where no haggis has gone before....

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Modern American Redneckism and everything cool associated with it comes from the American South.

The American South came from the Scots-Irish.

The Scots Irish came from Ulster.

The Scots Irish in Ulster came from the Scottish Borderlands.

Ergo; ancestral Lowland Scot Redneckism, alive and well.

First off, a historical marker from the village of Ecclefechan, these 19th Century guys sure looked Southern to me....

[Linked Image]

Shortly thereafer I'm riding along and these little muddy sedans start absolutely screaming up and down the roads every which way, and I could hear 'em getting absolutely flogged up in the dirt on the hillsides above too....

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It was a local rally, here was a pit stop or check point of sorts....

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I was given to understand that the spectators all stay in their cars along the roadside so that they can roll if the Cops show up.

So there it is; paleolithic Redneckism, the distant roots of mud racing and NASCAR all in one.

Homo richardpettyii

[Linked Image]

...and they all got Scottish accents.

Ya seen it here first.


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"And now for something comepletely different.".....

A little ways further along

I'm passing this parked Land Rover and this nice young couple offer me a cup of tea and snacks, they were all impressed with my travel plans and mode of transport.

Turns out they were a support vehicle for the Tynseside Bicycle Club of Newcastle, out for a one-day TWO HUNDRED TWENTY MILE RIDE to Edinburgh. Followed by an easy one hundred thirty miles the next day.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

See? Its all relative.

Last edited by Birdwatcher; 07/01/16.

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Thanks for the time and effort you put into these post.

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Damn.

220 miles in one day...

I would not have lived through that.

Nice pics! Keep 'em coming! (There are those of us living through you on these trips.) smile


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Quick update for Saturday Day 11:

Tough 55 mile day accross Sperrin Mts,, most of it directly into gusting winds and heavy rains. Hotel in Irvinestown last night, into the Republic today.


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Start of Tuesday Day 14: Quick update. Leaving Abbeyknockway, should be at Cliffs of Moher today. The Irish are possibly the friendliest and most hospitable people on Earth, just be prepared to lose your ability to comprehend spoken English if you visit here.

Traveling on a bicycle? Stop at a local pub to find where to put a tent up for the night. Drink a pint or two of Guiness during this process.

Two out of the last three days heavy rains most of the day.


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Ennis, Republic of Ireland headed south.


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Lost a piece of my Notebook 220/110V transformer, I'm using my iSE as my 'puter.

Trial: The trail along the Cliffs of Moher, Claire, Ireland in the evening, 600ft drop, driving rain, 30+mph winds. Here ya can be arrested for having an old clip of .303 left by your Republican granddad, but they have no problem with the general public taking this 4 mile trail back from the visitor center to Doolin where everybody stays.

[Linked Image]

Hmm.... can't get it to paste more' n one image at a time.


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[Linked Image]

.....and these weren't even the scary parts, on those the trail is eroded away so you have to hold on with both hands.

These are what I could get, unfortunately my iPhone screen in its case won't respond whe soaked.


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Thank you for sharing the pictures Birdie...all the best on your travails.

No, wasn't a spelling error.


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Originally Posted by JSTUART


Thank you for sharing the pictures Birdie...all the best on your travails.

No, wasn't a spelling error.


Hey, life is hard and then you die.........

.......IF you're lucky. wink

First place I came across in Ennis had the 220/110V transformer I was needing AND a UK/French adapter plug. And yesterday Top Bike in the same town had took delivery of the new tires I needed just on my word over the phone (my originals both unaccountably went belly up).

Hey rain tonight but just now it ain't rained in a day and a half, life is good cool

Birdwatcher


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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher


Hey, life is hard and then you die.........

.......IF you're lucky. wink

First place I came across in Ennis had the 220/110V transformer I was needing AND a UK/French adapter plug. And yesterday Top Bike in the same town had took delivery of the new tires I needed just on my word over the phone (my originals both unaccountably went belly up).

Hey rain tonight but just now it ain't rained in a day and a half, life is good cool

Birdwatcher


Drought?


smile


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Drought?


Crisis averted; rain today and tonight, more tomorrow, Irish mud is safe for another day.

Anyways from Day 4, same day as the rally and bicycle club, the Borderlands and South Lanarkshire, surprisingly empty of people...

[Linked Image]

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Scottish law allows travelers like myself to camp on private property, I think trespassing is rude at best, consequently, like on my NY trip two years back, I only camped OUTSIDE fencelines.

The view from the tent, morning Day 5....

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A breed of cattle I ain't seen before, mottled grey and white?

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And the signs you have to put up if you insist on driving on the wrong side of the road. Actually driving on the wrong side of the road is easy, its driving on the wrong side of the VEHICLE that takes some getting used to.

[Linked Image]


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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher

A breed of cattle I ain't seen before, mottled grey and white?

Might be British Blues..

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A day that started so pretty ended in Glasgow.

As an Irish person said here this evening "like Ulster with knives instead of guns", Catholic vs. Prod, tribal. Used to be the murder capital of Europe, but things have quieted of late.

I was lost there for three hours trying to follow the little "Bike Route" signs. Actually those signs only work if you're navigating by app, something I figured out three hours into it.

So... Glasgow pics.....

I dunno who first had the idea of concentrating the lower-income into hi-rises, here's some, the international "stay away from this area" warning signs, River Clyde in the foreground...

[Linked Image]

...and the bike route signs, that lead you through all sorts of neighborhoods.... and then just leave you there....

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I thought the spiral orientation of the bricks inside this old arch was interesting...

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6:30pm and raining, and for all I knew another three hours to get out of the west side of the city. To me on a bicycle Glasgow was like Houston is to a driver; a chaotic jumble of neighborhoods, upscale and downscale. Turns out Lock Lomond was just twenty miles away. Not realizing that, I cut my losses and checked into a hotel downtown....

[Linked Image]



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Day 6: One escapes Glasgow heading west by picking up the Forth and Clyde Canal, a national treasure that crosses from the east coast all the way to the west.

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The canal ends at the mouth of the Levern, which originates in Loch Lomond, you follow it upstream, startlingly quiet for a place immediately adjacent to a metroplex of two million people...

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Fishing for salmon, and sea trout, with plain ol' worms...

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Loch Lomond is pretty long, it was formed by glaciers, about like the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. In fact the post-glacial terrain of much of Scotland and Ireland has me having Upstate New York flashbacks the whole time.

Top end of Loch Lomond on Day 7, right before I climbed the pass to the west to get to Argyll proper and the Kintyre Peninsula...

[Linked Image]

Memory escapes me but I believe this was the next loch over, no more than a couple of miles to the west of Loch Lomond, which name escapes me just now, like Loch Lomond it runs north and south.

[Linked Image]


That's it fer now....


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Great pics. Mike. Bet you will be happy to get back to the dry.




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Originally Posted by Wtxj
Great pics. Mike. Bet you will be happy to get back to the dry.


And then some.... here I was in my rain gear at the top of the Gap of Dunloe, Killarney NP just yesterday, leaning forward to stay upright. This is July in Ireland. First time on a bicycle I can recall being blown uphill by the wind. Glad I weren't going about it in the other direction.

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Took a day to look for white-tailed eagles, like our baldies but bigger, didn't find 'em. That would be my binocs under my jacket.

'nother layover day today here in Killarney, a laid back sort of outdoorsy/touristy mecca, with rain. I was all set to jet to Cobh by tomorrow but it turns out the ferry to France ain't 'till Saturday. Taking a day to tweak the bike and catch upon things in general.

Anyhoo, Day 7, still in Scotland, the pass from Loch Lomond to the sea Loch Fyne and Inveraray on the Kintyre Peninsula, home of the Campells and the Dukes of Argyl.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Near as I could tell this pass was my one and only episode of "Scottish Highland" as in open moorland.

The Kintyre Peninsula, more'n 100 miles long and maybe ten miles wide encompases some serious real estate, home of the Campbells, McKintyres et al. and definitely is NOT "highland" by appearance, topgraphy or vegetation. Furthermore turns out the Argyll at the time brung in a bunch of Border Lowland Scots to repopulate the place after a devastating smallpox epidemic in the 1600's. IIRC Argyll and his Campbells came down on the British side in the Uprising of '45, that might explain why.

Anyways, Loch Fyne in the evening (about 10pm local time), this long inlet from the sea has gotta be like 40 miles long...

[Linked Image]

...and the residence of his Lordship hisself, the Argyll, built in the 18th Century after the Duke at the time decided to make Inveraray (rhymes with "Tipperary") his official residence....

[Linked Image]


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The approach to Inveraray from the Northeast....

[Linked Image]

The tall, rectangular church-like tower is the Campbell Memorial, erected by the then Duke of Argyll in memory of all the Campbells that fell in the First World War. The three 18th Century archways front a central plaza, THAT was built by the same Argyll that built the residence, trying to dress the place up a bit. The pale square building is covered with plastic, undergoing renovation/restoration.

The Campbell Memorial, which apparently houses impressive bells, leastwise a sign advertises bell-ringings...

[Linked Image]

Scottish spoken here, the doorway of the church next to the memorial tower...

[Linked Image]

...and a reference to the strangely moderate climate of this part of Scotland, courtesy of the Gulf Stream. This was on the grounds of the memorial, I think I seen plants like that in Costa Rica...

[Linked Image]


...and because it don't fit anywhere else really, this is what an actual Loch Fyne kipper looks like in the morning, done right.

[Linked Image]










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The whole Kintyre Peninsula, every community, has a Great War Memorial with long lists of names. The loss of a generation in the Highland Regiments was apparently especially catastrophic here. One of them took pains to explain why so many non-Highland names were included, referring to that 17th Century Duke of Argyll and the smallpox epidemic. Apparently names mattered in 1918.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Different topic; a fellow reenactor, but one with talent.

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Serious at his craft and versed in his history, here engaged in the somewhat mundane task of piping a welcome to the busloads of day-trippers from Glasgow.


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On down the peninsula, I was too busy riding to make the Friday ferry from Campbeltown, shoulda took more pictures of the terrain; low rolling hills, a lots of forest lands and logging, some grazing....

[Linked Image]

Rhunahaorine Primary School (Buns-ghoil Rubha na h-Aoirinn), where kids learn to spell early...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

...and a supermarket in Cambeltown....

[Linked Image]

King Scallops on a bed of black pudding with caramelised onion relish...

[Linked Image]


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Old Killean Estate, northwest shore of the Kintyre Peninsula towards Cambeltown. Just another old ruin of a church or chapel by the side of the road, age unknown but old (14th Century?).

[Linked Image]

Surrounded by 19th Century gravestones, didn't see any older.

Windows and doors of the original chapel had at some point been filled in, by someone good at his craft...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

and attached to the body of the original chapel, a crypt, too dark to come up on my iphone but with old-looking coffin-shaped stone slabs on the floor and others stood up leaning against the wall. Strange hole in the stonework above the sign (it was the rain, some other shots came out like this too)...

[Linked Image]

...an the inscription above the entrance to the crypt, 19th Century? Looked younger than the crypt itself...

[Linked Image]


Gotta be a story or five here, yet couldn't find anything on google.



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Some great stuff.

Always enjoy your narrative and your adventures.

Keep it coming and hope it dries up a little for you.

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A farewell to Scotland...

The approaches to Campbeltown...

[Linked Image]

Another Great War monument....

[Linked Image]

The regular Campbeltown/Ballycastle ferry (in front) was broken, one of the starters had gone out. To get back from Ireland the day before they had to start one engine, switch out the starters, and then start the other. So we took the 34 ft one in back cool

[Linked Image]


My faithful bicycle, late of Texas to New York and innumerable rides to work, here strapped on the back. The rain in Ballycastle washed off the salt.

[Linked Image]


Last view of Scotland, the Mull of Kintyre...

[Linked Image]

Eleven (??) days ago, pretty much the last view of blue skies as well wink

Birdwatcher


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Tks, this guy got good pics of the Largie crypt covers...

https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2138769443885416857

12-13th Century by the armor??

And the House of Largie were MacDonalds....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_MacDonald_of_Largie



Gotta be a story or twenty there.


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Spent the night high up, on the Counties Kerry and Cork border. Lows in the '30's, absolutely beautiful

Passed up a pot of gold yesterday evening on the way up, or maybe it was a keg of Budweiser I dunno...

[Linked Image]

...and a similar opportunity early this morning on the way down...

[Linked Image]



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Nice Pics!

Stay healthy and safe, and keep the updates coming! smile


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Hey tks.

Good news here is that the 12th (326th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne) passed without major incident up in Ulster, that being the season when the Unionists (AKA "Prods") march their grim Orange Order parades through Nationalist (AKA "Catholics" or "Republicans") areas. Nowadays with enormous police presence.

Also traditional for the Unionists to light tall bonfires on the night before (the 11th night). Unreal to see photos of where some of the places these things were built in Belfast.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36780309

As good a place as any to post the pics of the two Orange Order lodges I seen parading through the Republican-majority town of Maghera ("Maherah") on Day 1 in Ireland, on that day in remembrance on the Centennial of the Battle of the Somme....

[Linked Image]

Stern-faced, determined marchers stonily ignored or quietly cursed by the few onlookers, Cops present.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Problem was the Native Irish never died off after the Scots-Irish took over Ulster, and indeed always outnumbered the Brits and their Scots-Irish allies in Ireland as a whole. Over the centuries atrocities were committed by both sides.

These Orange Order parades, often marched through Catholic neighborhoods, were a Protestant Unionist way of reminding everyone in Ulster who had won, and so naturally became a focal point of sectarian violence.

Thankfully, the historical gist seems to be that as political realities and generations change, those inclined to violence on both sides appear to be a shrinking minority. Usually we have reason for worry when the youth forget our history, but in this particular case, maybe not so much.

[Linked Image]


For those interested; the very roots of our Scots-Irish Frontier culture; Scots-Irish Presbyterians, as seen here at Tobermore Presbyterian Church....

[Linked Image]

Birdwatcher


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The weird cows are either English or Belgiun blues.

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Well dang, this sojourn in Ireland is coming to an end, I get the ferry to Cherbourg, France today.

First five days was 250 miles in a straight line southwest from Ballycastle to Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher.

The harbor at Ballycastle, far northeast end of Ireland, too small for anything but passenger-only ferries from Scotland.

[Linked Image]

First Irish breakfast upon landing, right on the harbor; the "big fry". Travelling by bicycle its all about the calories, ya eat like a starving wolf, grease is your friend.

[Linked Image]

Climbing out of Ballycastle away from the harbor...

[Linked Image]

In Ireland they don't buy so much firewood for their fireplaces as they do bags of coal, here seen outside a convenience store. I get the nostalgia, I myself can recall our fireplace being our only source of heat, even for hot water. The smell of coal smoke still takes me back.

Further south in the Republic you also find bricks of peat for sale, same places.

[Linked Image]

First view of the countryside. Yes Ireland is really, really green. Its green because it rains all the friggin' time and rarely freezes, both of these courtesy of the Gulf Stream.

[Linked Image]


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The ideal on a bike trip is to crash out at night by the side of the road, failing that a campground. No campground? Then a hostel.

Ulster has few campgrounds and none at all away from the coast, no hostels that I found, and didn't look like a place to sleep in a tent in a quiet place. Consequently, the first two nights and 100 miles I stayed in hotels.

Here's the Walsh's Hotel in Maghera, same place the Orange Order parades went past.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

'Nother shot of Irish green, here looking west towards the Sperrin Mountains, which I would cross into the teeth of blowing wind and rain, hardest cycling day so far.

[Linked Image]



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The Saturday cattle auction at Draperstown.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

..and the Sperrin Mountains in brief periods of time it weren't raining..

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]



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Day 3 in Ireland and the Republic at last.

Had to check; there was no "Welcome to the Republic of Ireland" sign. No border checkpoint, nada. Heck I could be here illegally fer all I know.

Here's the border southwest of Eniskillen.

[Linked Image]

...and a word on money. Since getting here I have carried Isle of Man pounds, English pounds, Scottish pounds, Ulster pounds and now I was into the realm of the Euro.

All of these have gotten away from paper to the point that the smallest paper currency is the 5 pound note (about $7.50) or the five euro note (about $6).

Ya end up carrying a lot of coins, I have to have a coin purse, its a pain.

[Linked Image]

Here was a surprise; freshly cut peat drying (ha ha) outside of Carrick-on-Shannon. Didn't see a bog, just a low spot with trees on it.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

This was the end of the day and I was seriously tempted to camp there, but I pushed on and ended up camped out fer nothing on the grass behind a pub next to a canal. Two nights in a row I did the pub thing, making up for funds spent on hotels (like $90 per) in Ulster.

[Linked Image]

Bricks of peat for sale outside a convenience store.

[Linked Image]


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Irish hair salon window...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

A few days later, somewhere south and east of Limerick, a roadside monument to an IRA guy killed in a shootout with Irish Free State forces in 1923. This monument not put up IIRC until 2009.

[Linked Image]

Irish history is different from ours. I was in a pub listening to some guys b&tch about Maggy Thatcher for not giving in to the IRA hunger strikers back when. Heck at the time my sentiments were gratitude that she didn't give in to the murdering, terrorist bastards. Still is.






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Thing is about the Irish is that they are stubbornly retro. and have their own way of doing things. Gaelic football and hurling still occupy most of the sports pages, traditional music and dance is mainstream.

The bad part of all that historically is that it extended to warfare and weapons. This is a representation of an Iron Age Irishman (500 BC??) at a cultural center.

[Linked Image]

The thing is, 2,000 years later the conquering English Armies under Elizabeth would run into basically the exact same guy. Same thing in the next century under Cromwell. And skipping backwards a few centuries before Cromwell, we've all seen this guy as an extra in Braveheart.

Speaking of Elizabeth, Ireland is full of ruined churches. Fer example I was given to understand Elizabeth had this one built, but that the next Century the Prods under Cromwell burned it and knocked it down.

[Linked Image]


Point of interest; according to the museum staff, the very first Irishman killed with a firearm was shot within sight of that church in the early 1600's by an Englishman. The staff had it that the Irish preferred to fight with blades.








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Quick update; mon premier nuit en France was a quiet spot in the woods near St. Brieuc. 75 mile day yesterday, 'nother 75 intended today a Mont St. Michel, same again after that to Normandy.

I am way behind on posting pics, but here's a sobering one outside of Morlaix....

[Linked Image]

Last edited by Birdwatcher; 07/17/16.

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Great pics, Mike!

Thanks, and continued hopes for your safety.


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No worries, out in Bretagne where I have been there is no sign of the looming demographic catastrophe occurring in France as a whole. They did have gendarmes with hardware present at the approaches to Mont St. Michel.

Anyone who has a 5yo granddaughter will know that it looks like someplace Princess Barbie might live....

[Linked Image]

Actually it sits way the heck out there on the flats in the middle of nowhere in a setting flat, arid and sunny, reminiscent of the Texas coast.

It is a work of architectural genius and I am glad we didn't have to blow it up in WW II. Speaking of which I am sitting in a cafe in Avaranches near a Sherman tank and a tall monument to Americans in that war. Likewise on the way in there was a marker commemorating how Patton liberated the area on his way through France.

Interesting stuff.

Last edited by Birdwatcher; 07/19/16.

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Photo for the day: The Patton Memorial, Avranches, Normandy.

[Linked Image]

Surprised the heck out of me, but Patton is regarded with much gratitude around here, as the impeccably maintained (fresh coat of paint on that Sherman) monument indicates.

On my way to St. Lo/Bayeax now.

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Update and some pics....

The Bayeux Tapestry, 70 yards long, 1,000+ years old. Absolutely friggin' amazing. For those out of the loop it a woven narrative of the event as leading up to William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings in 1066...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


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The American Cemetery above Omaha Beach; much visited, surprisingly beautiful grounds, profoundly moving.

[Linked Image]

I was on Omaha Beach talking to a French gentleman, told him I had come to see the invasion beaches. "No, not invasion" he corrected me "liberation".

Looking west towards Pointe du Hoc

[Linked Image]

and east towards Gold Beach

[Linked Image]

Ruined German gun position on Pointe du Hoc

[Linked Image]

and the cliff those Rangers climbed....

[Linked Image]

I'm in St Mare-Eglise tonight, 30 days and more'n 1,000 miles on the bicycle so far, another 400 miles ahead back up through England and I'm done.

Got a boatload of pics when I get time.

Birdwatcher




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fantastic thread Birdy

thanks for takin us along


I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.
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Tks and yer welcome.

I gotta say if I ain't already that travelling in Europe ain't all that different from travelling in America anymore; a free mingling of people and languages, compared to how it was anyway.

Places I ain't been though are the big cities, where the Muslim enclaves are growing exponentially.

Anyways, just north of Carentan yesterday...

[Linked Image]

St. Come-du-Mont, 72 years ago swarming with fallshirmjager...

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Dead Man's Corner....

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[Linked Image]

...and the view from there looking south down Purple Heart Lane towards Carentan, 72 years ago a death trap; an open elevated roadbed running between flooded fields....

[Linked Image]







"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Thanks Mike!

That's a sobering look into the past, to a time when our country and men had some balls and took a stand against evil.


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Quick update; on the evening ferry back to England a day sooner than expected (I was there already, and so was a ferry).

These ain't the White Cliffs of Dover like I had originally intended (didn't have the time in France fer another 250 miles to Calais) but they'll do...

[Linked Image]



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40 days and 1,400 miles and I'm done, back in Blackpool now. In the 'States my mileage would be about exactly twice that but detail and history lay much thicker on the ground over here.

OK, random Irish pics.

[Linked Image]

Damn, I'm gonna miss the National Ploughing Championships...
http://www.npa.ie/

[Linked Image]

Athenry east of Galway, founded 1235 by the Norman invaders, they hadda put a wall up to keep the Irish out, who were decidedly uncouth at that time.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

..and the ruined priory in Athenry. Ireland is full of church ruins. They were Catholic forever, then the 16th Century English under Elizabeth I built a bunch of Anglican/Church of England (later Church of Ireland) churches, then Cromwell's army tore down all of those a Century later.

[Linked Image]
















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Thank you for the recent posts Birdie, I am thoroughly enjoying them.

For the record, the Irish are still uncouth...it is why we let them in here.


These are my opinions, feel free to disagree.
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Irish car security system, Kinvara...

[Linked Image]

Braveheart IIRC was mostly filmed in Ireland, this here is west of Kinvara, looks like the tower Mel jumps his horse out of in that highly improbable scene.

[Linked Image]

Hillside in the Burrens, County Clare. West Coast of Ireland, traditional refuge of fugutives from the English.

During counter-guerrilla operations in Burren in 1651-52, Edmund Ludlow stated, "(Burren) is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing."

[Linked Image]


The coast west of Ballyvaughan. I was talking to a couple guys fishing here, waiting for the annual mackerel run where they will hit virtually any bait. I asked them what they were catching, "F--k all" they replied (local vernacular for "nothing"), turns out the mackerel weren't in yet.

I asked them if you know the mackerel were in by the seabirds, "f--k the birds" they said, "look for all the people." grin

[Linked Image]

My home fer a month and a bit, here pitched at Doolin at the Cliffs of Moher, behind a wall to shelter from the wind. I gotta say that that thin REI Quarterdome did alright, kept me reasonably dry even in Ireland where ya pitch in the rain, sleep through the rain and put everything up in the rain the next day.

[Linked Image]


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Thanks for sharing

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Thank you gentlemen for reading.

Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher...

This guy rated a 'Beware of the Bull' sign, tho' I suspect he was waiting for handouts from passing tourists...

[Linked Image]

The Cliffs from the ocean side, 700 ft tall (213 m) at O'Brien's Tower (that three-storey tower being the tiny nub on the top in the photo). Sir Cornelius O'Brien who as local lore put it "built everything here but the cliffs" musta been a ladies' man, as it was said he built the tower to impress the women he was chasing.

I'll 'fess up, my own motivation for being on the boat was the seabird colonies.

[Linked Image]

I already posted some clifftop pics a couple of pages back, but here's another. A peregrine falcon sailed leisurely by at eye level right after I took this photo...

[Linked Image]

Strong winds and raining when I hiked the cliffs late in the day, on the way I came across this small monument, looked like a birdbath from a distance, or maybe a sundial.

[Linked Image]

I gotta say that trail was all about falling: There was a Suicide Help Line number posted at the trail head, apparently folks fall off fairly reg'lar voluntary or otherwise, and the times in all that wind and rain where the trail was washed out and you had to use your hands as well as feet to negotiate the edge I was repeating a mantra inside my head "I will not fall of this f--king cliff", "I will not fall off this f--king cliff" (I think I was picking up on the local vernacular grin) .

Well,according to the plaque at the base of that little monument, two people fell while rappelling...

[Linked Image]

The irony in the name of course obvious.


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Good stuff!


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Leaving the cliffs, "Pat Sweeney's View" according to a plaque, and someone had put up a flag commemorating the centennial of Independence.

[Linked Image]

Doolin is a pleasant little tourist mecca, a laid back place with lots of younger folk, and many languages flying around. This Austrian Redneck was also at the campground, said he had just got done driving around Morocco. I thought the van was cool, prob'ly gets crappy mileage tho....

[Linked Image]

When I rolled into Doolin I seen a pub and my first thought was "Huh, another of them fake Irish Pubs".... until I remembered where I was grin

I gotta say, in Ireland, all this Irish stuff is practiced with serious intent, it ain't like they're putting it on for tourists. Scene from the pub in the evening, three guys putting out Irish tunes...

[Linked Image]

...and since I got room fer it here, my favorite Cliffs of Moher photo, that taller rocky spire down there was 2 or 300 feet tall...

[Linked Image]

The next day, cutting inland and running south of Doolin towards Ennis. Like I might have said elsewhere, away from the notably scenic spots Ireland to my mind recalls Upstate New York...

[Linked Image]


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A digression into bicycles, after all this tour was done on one.

Since I got serious about bicycles five years back I tried many different tires. On the pavement tread really isn't all that important, in fact tread often increases rolling resistance, which is why road bike tires are often slicks. For me the biggest factor is not having to fix fuggin' flats, and if ya spend $50 and up for each tire ya usually don't have to. In fact premium tires pays for themselves in terms of all the inner tubes you don't have to replace.

I have had great success with Continental Gatorskins, but for this trip, not knowing how much dirt I'd be riding on, opted instead for the highly-rated (and expensive) Continental Top Contacts II's.

Here's a fuzzy pic I took at the time for a bicycle forum, the Gatorskin being the one without the tread...

[Linked Image]

Yep the Top Contacts had noticeably higher rolling resistance, but were better in sand and gravel etc. Part way down the Kintyre Penisula in Scotland the front tire developed a distinct sideway kink in the tread. I was carrying a spare new Gatorskin folded up in my bags but, saving that for a real emergency before I got to a bike shop I rolled on that front tire for more'n a week, waiting to come across a bike shop, tolerating the "dink....dink....dink....dink" every time the kinked spot hit the inside of the front fender.

Outside of Abbeyknockmoy I got a flat in back, no biggie, flats happen. Next day, 'nother flat, same spot. Turns out the inside of the tire was disintegrating around the original puncture site, the fibers coming apart. So, I tossed the front tire in a dumpster, broke out the folded Gatorskin and put it on back, and put the old back tire on the front, a folded 5 Euro note between tube and tire covering the bad spot on the inside of the tire.

From Doolin I called ahead to a bike shop in Ennis, who ordered me two new 700x32 Gatorskins on just my word alone. I get to Ennis after leaving Doolin and see two guys on road bikes ahead so I crank hard after them to ask 'em where the bike shop was. Not seeing me, they go faster, so I have to crank extra hard on my 70+ pound bike to catch them.

Just as I get their attention...

"POPsssssSSSSSSssssssSSSSsssssh...", the 5 Euro note inside the tire blows out, that fix had lasted maybe seventy miles. So now I'm stuck, except right across the road at that point is the very bike shop I was needing cool What are the odds?

Gotta give 'em their props; Top Bike, Ennis, Republic of Ireland, guys who will purchase $120 worth of tires just on some unknown American guy's word over the phone, and when he arrives have him on his way in no time at all cool

[Linked Image]

I was headed south for Limerick, which from thirty miles out was already turning out to be a major urban center so I stopped that afternoon at the Ennis Youth Hostel.

Hostels ain't fer college kids anymore, in fact most folks there are older. What they were for me is a cheap place to charge up yer electrical devices, take a shower, do laundry and get on wifi.

The downside is you sleep in a dorm in a bunk bed with some random number of guys, and I hate sleeping in a room with guys. Every hostel is different though, and at this one I got to sleep on the floor below an open window AND a young German woman opted to sleep in the same room in the bunk bed above her German boyfriend.

Flat amazing how having a young woman in the room can improve the whole atmosphere.

Like many hostels in the British Isles, this one was in a classic old building downtown. Here's a mural out the window, probably by some Irish guy who hadn't been to many actual rodeos grin

[Linked Image]

Same window, 5am in the morning, four Irish ne'r do wells (NOT hostel patrons) loudly and profanely bemoaning the fact that they didn't have any cash for breakfast, booze or drugs. Also illustrating the latest in silly styles presently in vogue among Euro urban youth....

[Linked Image]


On through Limerick the next day. Limerick sucked, only place I didn't like in Ireland, took about forever to get clear of the place, the Homosexual flags adorning the big downtown bridge didn't help first impressions any...

[Linked Image]

Last edited by Birdwatcher; 08/01/16.

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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Outside of Abbeyknockmoy I got a flat in back, no biggie, flats happen. Next day, 'nother flat, same spot. Turns out the inside of the tire was disintegrating around the original puncture site, the fibers coming apart. So, I tossed the front tire in a dumpster, broke out the folded Gatorskin and put it on back, and put the old back tire on the front, a folded 5 Euro note between tube and tire covering the bad spot on the inside of the tire.

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

A small suggestion I was given years ago and found useful. I thought I'd pass on:

Before leaving home, cut about a foot of 2 inch duct tape and wrap it around one of the tubes in your bike frame for storage.

A foot long piece of tape is enough for a couple of tire repairs, even using 2 or 3 layers of tape on the inside of the tire.

I had a tire blow once, leaving a about a 4 or 5mm hole in the tire and me without a spare tire, although I did have a kit for patching a tube. Three layers of silver tape applied to the inside of the tire worked fine to keep the tube from blowing out at the hole (even at 60 or 70 psi).

All hail the mighty Duct Tape! smile

John

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Next day, north of Killarney. Judging by the newspapers, horse racing is still a big deal in Ireland, didn't know how grass roots it was until I came across this.

I was riding along and heard a faint running commentary, at first I thought the internet on my iphone musta been left on, got closer and here was this sign....

[Linked Image]

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"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Undoubtedly one of the best threads of the year!


I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.
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Quote
All hail the mighty Duct Tape! smile


Thanks for the tip, with all the stuff I was carrying I coulda thrown a whole roll of duct tape in the bags and not noticed any difference.

Killarney National Park, turn a bend in the road and there it starts; the west of Ireland just rises up all of a sudden as if randomly attached to a not nearly so spectacular mainland....

[Linked Image]

Friggin' Mexicans have infiltrated EVERYWHERE mad

[Linked Image]

I was there to look fer white-tailed sea eagles, but Killarney otherwise was just a pleasant touristy place to hang out, lots of sidewalk-type cafes and cool outdoorsy stores, bookstores, that sort of think, accents and languages from all over Europe.

At the campsite there was three cute blonde and natural German girls in the next tent over who thought I was just the most amusing and interesting old guy around (*SIGH*, like an old labrador during duck season, no longer allowed to retrieve).

Didn't score any young German blondes, nor find any eagles, but the scenery is all it was supposed to be, why so many go to visit there....

[Linked Image]

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Great read and SUPERB photography, Mike !

Kudos !

GTC


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-- “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”- Mark Twain





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I passed on riding the 100 mile Ring of Killarney, but instead just worked my way South around the coast towards Skibbereen....

[Linked Image]

Kenmare Bay, the waters change colors in response to the sky....

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At the top of Caha Pass a homecoming of sorts; County Cork is where the O'Birdy's are from.

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Slept there up high, dawn the next morning....

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"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Tks Greg, I'll fess up, there were times during my stay in County Cork in particular I got a tad choked up, prob'ly the humidity no doubt....

Next morning, the long downhill roll to Bantry Bay. The observant might note a change in the weather from that prior pic up top taken just a short time before, this being Ireland after all.

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Bottom of the hill, Bantry Bay

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...and looking south towards Roaringwater Bay...

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Turns out Algerian pirates raided Roaringwater Bay in 1631, killed hundreds, and carried off 200 into slavery...

[Linked Image]


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The mass gravesite at Abbeystrowry just outside of Skibbereen, where more than 9,000 victims of the Potato Famine were interred.

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[Linked Image]

Google translator outdid itself this time, roughly....

"In memory of the thousands who suffered and died in the GREAT FAMINE in the district of Skibbereen 1845 - 1850. May God grant His peace to their souls."

[Linked Image]

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It was a Wednesday evening, turns out there's an outdoor Catholic mass held there every Wednesday evening. I wanted to take photos of this service, and my people there, but of course I didn't.

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The elderly Catholic Priest, clearly also a Historian, gave a fine sermon and referenced some inscriptions in the Church of Ireland (ie. Protestant) Cathedral at Kinsale (which denomination he said, unlike the Catholics, had not forgotten the fine old Irish saints grin).

He had researched those inscriptions and had discovered some quite extraordinary efforts among elements of the British Christian community in those years to bring aid to the suffering in Skibbereen. Probl'y easier just to point fingers and feel aggrieved tho.

Along those lines I had a long conversation with a gentleman who tends those grounds and knows a bit about it. An utter catastrophe; a million dead and a million emigrated, but both of our own Catholic ancestors were among the more than four million or so in Ireland at that time who somehow contrived to survive those years, in the case of our forbearers in County Cork no less, near the epicenter of the famine.

What decisions they had to make on behalf of themselves and their families to accomplish that we'll never know.


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Pausing to navigate the next day along the south coast of Ireland while letting sleeping dogs (two boxers) lie. Its a good thing I weren't after the silverware.

[Linked Image]

No worries on that score, no time to waste, in 60 miles and 48 hours I was due on a ferry to France, and before then was on a mission to locate my grandpa's childhood abode in Cobh, said objective being central to this whole long endeavor.

Not what you might expect: The shallow tidal bays on the South Coast of Ireland smell friggin' wonderful, like fresh seaweed and the ocean, makes you hungry for seafood.

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[Linked Image]

..and yet another Irish church ruin, but this one at Timoleague came with a detailed history attached...

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Cobh (AKA "Queenstown" under the Brits) at last, here I am waiting for the ferry at Passage West to take me over the river.

My sister says I look like a garden gnome grin

[Linked Image]

I had two street addresses, one was my great grandfather's house where my grandfather was born and from whence he left for America both times and the other was the house where my great grandmother was living at the time she married my great grandpa.

The cathedral where they married in 1884 and where my grandad was baptized in 1889 was easy to find. And indeed there was a wedding taking place there that very day, maybe in the year 2148 their great grandchildren will come looking for that place.

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The street addresses I had brought good-natured smiles from the locals, they knew right where they were, just around the corner from each other.

Back when Cobh was Queenstown and a major port, the old east end of Queenstown was called "The Holy Ground", a notorious sailors' dive.

Go there and you'll find this marker bearing this photo...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Great Grandpa (born in Queenstown 1854) was 30 and living in that front row of houses by the dock when he married Mary, 18, who lived on the diagonal hill immediately behind those houses.

Both their houses are gone now, demolished in the 1960's and the lots sold off. A few of the original row houses still remain on the dead-end waterfront street where the family lived. On the right of the seawall in the foreground you can see the ramp going down to the wharf, the same one visible in the old photo.

[Linked Image]


On the hill where Mary lived, right behind those houses, nothing remains but overgrown foundations and rubble. Some of the locals, old as me or older, remembered the old houses and even where the house numbers had been.

[Linked Image]

We knew the O'Birdy's were from Queenstown, and we knew they were mariners, we just didn't realize how much.

Great Grandpa Birdy and his wife emigrated to Brooklyn in 1900, shortly thereafter he died on a construction site, family history has it that he was murdered by an Italian, and indeed there was an inquest into the suspicious death of himself and three others, killed as a result of the collapse of a construction scaffold.

The following year Great Grandma brought the three children, two boys and a girl, back to The Holy Ground where "several aunts and uncles lived". Great Uncle Patrick joined the Merchant Marine when he came of age before enlisting in the Royal Munster Fusilliers and was KIA at Gallipoli.

Grandpa O'Birdy, who despised the Brits and their wars, also went to sea as a teenager and ended up working as a salvage diver around the Panama Canal, a crippling attack of the bends ended that career and he moved to Brooklyn where he met his wife, likewise an Irish immigrant. He went on to father nine kids, so at least some parts escaped permanent damage.

There it is, two generations at least of the O'Birdy's were from The Holy Ground, front and center, a neighborhood so notorious they wrote a song about it grin




Next up: Birdwatcher goes to France.


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Sorry to read that the ancestral homes are no longer. That's got to give a bit of a hollow ring to your efforts in finding them. My condolences for that.

I want to thank you for taking me along on another cycling journey. You've seen and shared some beautiful country. Places I'll never see. I've a good amount of Celt blood in me, mostly Scottish if the names mean anything, and would treasure the opportunity to visit Scotland and Ireland. Thanks for sharing your journey.


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Birdwatcher, thanks from here for the great pictures and comments. I did a little wandering around in Germany several years ago but nothing like you are doing here. Those old countrys have a lot of history.


The Mayans had it right. If you�re going to predict the future, it�s best to aim far beyond your life expectancy, lest you wind up red-faced in a bunker overstocked with Spam and ammo.


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Quote
Sorry to read that the ancestral homes are no longer. That's got to give a bit of a hollow ring to your efforts in finding them. My condolences for that.


Oh heck, not at all. I'm sure those places were condemned for a reason, to the point that they were demolished in a place where even now, fifty years later, only part has been replaced with modern structures. So it ain't like there was a public domain demand for the property.

Referencing the beginning of this thread, I spent my own childhood living just a half mile or so from the sea in one of those little brick multistory row houses, so did everyone I knew, and as it must have been for my grandfather so it was the seashore was our playground.

In any case, most of the town itself, which must have been as familiar to them as our own streets are to us, is still intact. For example, this was practically on their front door step.

[Linked Image]

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Looking up from the wharf to the exact location their house stood, plainly things ain't changed all that much on the seaward side of that wall... grin

[Linked Image]

From there they looked out across the harbor to the harbor mouth and open sea, must been a pretty powerful pull.

[Linked Image]

..and the old town between there and the cathedral is still mostly intact, the satellite dishes are something new tho...

[Linked Image]






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Weddings and such are still going on in that same cathedral....

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Which I'm pretty sure is still Irish..... and Catholic grin

[Linked Image]


Quote
I want to thank you for taking me along on another cycling journey.


Sir, you are most welcomecool My visit to Cobh was just Day 24 of a 40-day journey, we still have quite a ways to go yet.

Might be next week and Texas before I have the idle time for another big catch-up day on this tread tho.


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Stayed in an actual hotel in Cobh, seven road miles from Ringaskiddy, where the ferry port was actually located across the bay, it was either that or find a quiet spot in the woods and I wanted to have my act together when crossing into France (turns out I needn't have worried).

It was a 15 hour crossing, due to arrive at sunrise. The ferry was a big boat, like a mini-cruise ship, with restaurants, a pool and a movie theater. Even without a cabin there was floor space to sleep, outlets to plug in the electronics, and accessible showers. The boat was so big up close I couldn't get all of it in a photo.

[Linked Image]

About a 90 minute wait, bikes had to queue with vehicles, no searches, no dogs (France and Ireland are both EU), just checking documents and boarding passes. I was concerned that since Ireland didn't offically know I was there (there is no border crossing of any sort between Ulster and the Republic) there might be a glitch. Likewise when I returned to the UK after Ireland and France without having officially left the country across a formal border, but again no worries, no search, in my case just passport stamps each arrival. Not even that for most folks on board.

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A sailboat (25-30 ft?), somewhere off the coast of France, turning I think in anticipation of our prob'ly quite considerable wake. Every ferry crossing (Isle of Man, Ireland, France and England) I'd see a couple of actual sailors like this, out there in small sailboats, sometimes out of sight of land. My sense of it is there exists a hardcore sailing fraternity out there, and my hat is off to 'em cool

[Linked Image]

Next morning, dawn at sea, just surreal....

[Linked Image]


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Thats a way cool sunrise... one for the wall so to speak.


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Mike I have been silently following your journey, I do thank you for sharing. I truly envy your ability to do these trips Sir.


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Originally Posted by T LEE
Mike I have been silently following your journey, I do thank you for sharing. I truly envy your ability to do these trips Sir.


Thanks T, I will say that bicycles are awesome. With my knees I can't hardly run down the block yet I can cycle across a continent. The bike frame is steel, usual in touring bikes as it gives a much softer ride tho at the expense of weight and a lack of rigidity, both of which are premiums among the ordinary road bike crowd.

The bike weighs 33 pounds, about double what a good road bike would, on top of that I was hauling about 35 pounds of laptop, locks, pump, tubes, tools, clothes, sleeping bag, food, tent, water etc.. for an all up weight of around 70 pounds. How cycling a 70 pound bike is possible is the gearset, I got gears so low I can practically climb walls.

Likewise I am completely indifferent to speed, doesn't matter how fast you are going long as the wheels are rolling, and the overriding principle for me is to preserve the knees. Most of my time was spent at a leisurely 8 to 12 mph, slower than that uphill, faster down. Slow enough that I could actually take in the scenery. If you actually get physically tired on a bike expedition you are doing it wrong.

Brooks saddles cost around $130 and are made of leather, hard as a rock when new but they soon break in to your own butt. Because I'm using a Brooks saddle I can dispense with those absolutely horrible lycra/spandex bicycle clothes and padded crotches.

I wear just a single layer of loose-fitting nylon; oversize Magellan fishing shirts, loose-fitting pants from REI. Nylon doesn't hold moisture, you can sweat right through it, and it keeps its UPF rating even when wet, so if ya wear a broad-brimmed hat on sunny days with long sleeves and long pants ya don't need sunblock either.

Same thing with the pedals; I use ordinary platform pedals, no clips or special bicycle shoes. What this allows me to do is move my feet on the pedals if I start to get sore knees; change the angle of load on your knees and the pain subsides, or does for me. Plus I get to wear ordinary, functional footwear. I did this whole 1,400 mile trip in Crocs, the 2,000 mile NY trip two years back I did in slip-on sandals. My pants tuck into my ordinary socks.

Longest day with this set-up when I was actually trying to cover ground was 75 miles on my first day in France, shortest day was less than 40 miles of crossing a series of very steep-sided valleys in the Pennines when I was coming back north up England.

The trick is a comfortable bike, and patience. The hardest part is setting aside the time to do it. TX to NY took me a month. I set aside 42 days for this shorter, slower trip. I did it in 40.

It also saves ya a LOT of money if you can sleep outside on the ground. Actually I brung an air mattress on this trip, mostly to lift me up out of any puddles in the tent. Never used it.

I gotta say I suspect most people could do a trip like this, easier than they know.

Birdwatcher


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Arrived in France on a quiet Sunday morning. Upon arrival I was in for something of a shock.

My intent had been to ride from Cherbourg to Calais, 300 miles. Across the Normandy beaches, through Dieppe, and on to Calais with its migrant camps, crossing back over to the famous white cliffs of Dover.

Problem was the ferry went to Roscoff, I thought Roscoff was close to Cherbourg in the same way that at Cork you actually catch the ferry at a nearby village called Ringaskiddy. I came to this conclusion based on a prior conversation with another cyclist in Ireland and because of a dotted line on a road map showing the only ferry from Cork going to Cherbourg. That and a general lack of internet access in the days prior.

As it turned out Roscoff is actually about 250 highway miles west of Cherbourg, on the other side of Brittany over by Brest grin

Fortunately I was riding the solution to the problem. Plan B was 220 miles east across Brittany and then Normandy to Bayeux, and then another 50 miles past Omaha and Utah Beaches north to Cherbourg, ferry to England from there.

That morning I was in a whole 'nother climate after two weeks of rain and mist in Ireland, it was clear and gonna be hot, it felt not a whole lot different from being on the coast in Texas except prettier.

Other than the ferry port, Roscoff if a quiet old resort town, not that big at all.

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I rode into town and found a place selling breakfast (basically bread and strong coffee in France, not yer regular grease commonly served up in the English-speaking world). The architecture was immediately different; the English and Irish paint their houses, in France drab and imposing stonework was the norm, often offset by colorful flowers...

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

I liked France and I liked the French. I was surprised, based on prior experiences I didn't think I would, but I like the French. Started right off with the pretty and friendly woman serving up breakfast. I was my observation that French women commonly dress just a tad sexier than they really need to, an admirable trait IMHO.


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Cold looking buildings, warm looking women! smile smile


George Orwell was a Prophet, not a novelist. Read 1984 and then look around you!

Old cat turd!

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One mistake I made on this trip was hurrying through Brittany, not enough photos. At the time I was mostly thinking of getting back on track, and putting the 200 miles to Normandy under the tires pretty quick.

The first 15 miles or so went frustratingly slow. Though was I needing to go east, first I had to run 15 miles south to get to the town of Morlaix and around a long estuary. The only direct route was off limits to bicycles, seen here looking towards Morlaix (note again the radical change in climate from just the day before in Ireland grin)...

[Linked Image]

I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore when I passed fields of these things.... this is what artichokes look like.

[Linked Image]

Morlaix is a pretty little touristy town at the top of a long, narrow estuary, the town framed by a spectacular two-level railway viaduct, a lock holding water in the tiny harbor at low tide. One of those places where I shoulda taken more photos but didn't, and some of those I thought I was taking somehow never made it to the iphone memory. I do have this one.

[Linked Image]

Turns out Bretons are a different sort of French, with their own language. But even out in the sticks people everywhere in the world got the 'net, and are plugged in. Case in point; in some backwoods village in BF Brittany I came across this: At first I thought it was some sort of moody French artwork. Moody French artwork it may have been, but what it also was was a portrait tribute to the recently deceased David Bowie....

[Linked Image]

Despite my early start, it was noontime before I got to Morlaix on account of the winding backroads. A long steep climb out of town held me up further so naturally, being so far off-course as I felt I was, I was getting frustrated.

No worries, turns out France as a whole is a whole lot easier to navigate on a bicycle then say, England. Unlike England, the backroads where I went in Brittany and Normandy trended long and straight. I made the next 60 miles to St. Brieuc before dark.

[Linked Image]


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Crossing backroads West Texas you drive from water tower to water tower, crossing backroads Brittany you drive from steeple to steeple.

Breton church steeples are both ornate and pierced.

[Linked Image]

That long first day is that it was a Sunday, and rural Brittany is closed on Sundays, I'd ride through village after village and everything would be shuttered. It was about 90F and even getting water was a problem.

Late in the day I did come across this town (Bell-Isle-En-Terre?) where there was some kind of small festival going on, and one restaurant sort of open.

[Linked Image]

France is full of crucifixes, leastways Brittany and Normandy are, set up at crossroads, mostly from the 19th Century and earlier, apparently by private individuals and families as memorials.

The older ones in Brittany followed the same form; tall post, stubby cross, crucified Jesus on the front, and what might be a saint on the back.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


When the Allies were establishing a beachhead in Normandy things got ugly in occupied France. Calls had gone out to the Resistance across France before and during the landings to impede the German war effort, sabotage became widespread. The Germans applied brutality in an effort to suppress it.

I already posted the photo earlier in this thread outside of Morliax of the roadside monument marking the place where on August 4th 1944, fifteen civilians were shot in reprisal.

Here's another sort of roadside cross, July 15th 1944, seventeen members of the Resistance executed here.

[Linked Image]


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All the cool kids in France drive one of these, a restored 2CV....

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Front wheel drive, 600cc air-cooled flat twin loosely copied from BMW's motorcycle engines. I think these things rock..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV#Engines

Brittany in July is sunny and gold...

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Dunno which cereal this is, but there was a lot of it...

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Seemed like every five minutes heavy-duty harvesting equipment was rolling by....

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The coast of Brittany, I passed around behind St. Malo to avoid any crowds in my rush to get to Normandy. So I dunno what St. Malo is like, but east of there the coast is quiet. Le-Mont-Saint-Michel from twenty miles out is a point on the horizon....

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Two Cops with hardware on the access road to Mont St. Michel.they seen this odd-looking guy approaching on a loaded-up bicycle. "Are you a terrorist?" they asked me. "No, I'm an American." I replied. "We like Americans." they said.

[Linked Image]

Mont St Michel sits way out on the tidal flats in the middle of nowhere, it would have been an architectural achievement even if it wasn't beautiful.

[Linked Image]


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Then, right after Mont St. Michel, much to my surprise, time for something completely different.

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11,956 sets of German remains, an ossuary, round inside, each set of remains in its own alcove.

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I know that most of us, had we been born in Germany in that period, would have ended up in their army, fighting for a Germany ruled by Adolph Hitler. So I ain't gonna condemn these dead men, but these were not the honored men. To me the place looked like something the Nazis themselves might construct and there was no peace there.

“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” G. Patton 1943

Just my $0.02 and worth every penny.



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Avranches, unlike most towns, was built on top of a hill rather than down in a valley and it was a hellacious and hot climb at the end of a long day to get up there. Before that tho I crossed the strategically important bridge over the La Rivier Selune.

They love Patton in Avranches,and a whole crapload of Shermans in a hurry rolled into history across this bridge in August of '44....

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

...and up in town, a repeat of my earlier pic of the Patton Monument in Patton Square, Avranches, Normandy, France.

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I dunno how many other American Generals have their own monument, especially overseas.


I was whupped and beginning to run out of daylight by the time I got to Patton Square. I thought about staying in the Patton Hotel right there on the square, but hotels add up on a long trip and were a last resort/

I have this tremendous British campground app on my iphone and here the "Campgrounds close to your location" option brung me to Fred's Place, the best and most laid-back campground of the whole trip.

Electrical outlets, showers, sinks and good wifi, for which Fred charged me the princely sum of 5 Euro, I think because he felt obliged to charge me something.

The now-elderly Fred is retired British Military, and runs a laid-back establishment out in the green Normandy countryside. Not much to look at but just a great vibe, in a setting where good dogs are not only allowed but appreciated.

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Many folks who've been, from all walks of life, go back year after year, as would I next time I'm in Normandy. I heard there is a tremendous gathering there every August.



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Just down the road from Fred's, the house that, as Fred told me, served as Patton's headquarters for a spell. Quiet now, no sign of what had been.

[Linked Image]

St. Lo, focus of so much bitter fighting, is all gone to suburbs now, in fact I stopped at a McDonald's on the ridge above town, the same one go, upon which, 72 years aso much blood was shed. Martinsville, further down that same ridge, still retains a rural character.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-13/st-lo_4.htm

Quote
In the Martinville area, far from being able to stage attacks that could reach the isolated battalion, 9th Division units were on the defensive all day. The Germans had moved back on the Martinville Ridge, and were also between the 2d Battalion and the 175th Infantry....

The main pressure of German counterattack came along the Martinville Ridge, where the 1st Battalion of the 116th held the front 500 yards east of Martinville village. Along the draw to the south there was a gap of 700 yards between the 1st Battalion and the 175Th Infantry, and the Germans were probing this gap in force. Their artillery was aided, as on previous days, by good vantage points for observation from the ridge south of the Bayeux highway.

The 1st Battalion had to deal with two determined counterattacks. Before the first, the enemy artillery barrage was intense and for two hours the battalion was forced to dig in while undergoing fire on the left flank and left rear. The Germans followed up this fire with an attack by three tanks and an estimated 100 paratroopers, armed with flame throwers. Coming out of their holes, the men of the 1st Battalion fought off this threat. The enemy infantry were never able to get close enough to use the flame throwers, and left the slope strewn with dead as they were driven back.

A second counterattack came along the ridge from Martinville and hit the battalion on the right. Company A, which was holding the road flank, was in a severely decimated condition. Having lost its last officer on the preceding clay, the company was informally commanded on 16 July by 1st Sgt. Harold E. Peterson, who had been placed in charge by survivors of the unit. Regimental Headquarters had sent a lieutenant with some men from Company B to take over Company A, but the officer was new to combat and followed the suggestions of Peterson. The defense of the battalion's right flank thus devolved on Company A when the enemy attacked with machine-gun fire, supported by a tank advancing along the Martinville road blasting at Company A's hedgerow line.


The Martinsville area today, a few old stone houses and barns still hidden behind tall hedgerows...

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...and bocage, and endless series of enclosed rectangles, perfect for defense....

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Last edited by Birdwatcher; 08/08/16.

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Its been a busy summer and some how I missed this thread that I was looking forward to reading. Just spent the last hour catching up. Looks like I need to visit Scotland sometime. Great thread Mike good pics and like all your threads it makes me do some research on things. Looks like you had a good time. Good Luck and Sorry It took me so long to find this thread.

Charles


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Birdy
I have read through the whole post at one sitting enjoying every minute of it. My wife grew up in the Dublin area and talks about some of the places you mention. As for me my family ( one young lad) came from England in 1740. It is claimed that our name is part of the border clans, but when I did my DNA I am more western Europe than English, I have alway thought we came in with William in 1066 and the DNA tends to confirm this but I digress. Thank you Sir I very much appreciate every thing so far and look forward to any and all future posting on your travels of this trip.
Cheers NC


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Tks all, back to the Martinville photos in my previous post, another passage from the link....

Quote
The narrow dirt road along the Martinville Ridge was banked by thick hedgerows with a luxuriant foliage screen. On both sides were the usual fields and orchards, with open fields predominating.

The fury of the fighting that swept this ridge approach to St-Lo was indicated by the nature of the shelters and dugouts of both enemy and American troops, left along every foot of hedgerow as the battle moved on, and varying from hurried frantic scoops out of the side of an embankment to deep holes so covered with logs and earth as to leave the barest possible opening.


As can be seen in my photos, I saw no evidence of those excavations on my visit.

One thing notable about the Normandy battlefields (heck, almost the whole area was a battlefield at one point or another) is the lack of craters and trenches evident today, at least from the roads. Surprising considering the many intense areas of shelling by the big guns of battleships, the regular field artillery of both sides, and carpet bombing by the RAF and USAAF. You don't see any of that, perhaps they were all filled in during the decades following to restore these productive agricultural fields.

Point of comparison; one area where the cratering does survive is around the shattered artillery bunkers up on Point-du-Hoc. Beneath the long grass the terrain is pockmarked by craters 10 or 15 feet deep and maybe thirty feet across. So many that there is no unscarred terrain remaining, and the footpaths weave around the edges of the shell craters.

[Linked Image]

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There exists limited access below ground at these bunkers, drab and ugly inside...

[Linked Image]

Sorta related, this steel thimble was on display at a roadside museum above Omaha Beach. Not sure what it was. The little white sign said "Armour Cloche of German 60 Tonnes", observation post maybe?

Suffice to say, if anyone was inside that thing on 6/6/1944, they were prob'ly having a very bad day.

[Linked Image]

Ironically, that's an EU flag on that pole.









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The Cathedral de Notre Dame in Bayeux.

Sited on the site of an old Roman shrine, founded by William the Conqueror's half brother Bishop Odo, a guy who carried a mace in battle as clergy were not allowed to shed blood. The first version was completed in 1077, receiving a considerable facelift in the 1300's.

Apparently this is a second-rate Gothic cathedral as such things go, but I was still awed at the skills of those 14th Century masons, this thing was a symphony in stone.

We tend to think of the Middle Ages of being full of unwashed people with bad teeth wearing strange clothes and living short, filthy and ignorant lives. All of that was part of the truth and yet those same people possessed the collective wherewithal to create....

this.....

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Bayeux has come through history amazingly intact, and even now remains a quiet backwater of a place, no suburbs to speak of, no commercial loop road like St. Lo. A blessing it wasn't leveled in the fighting during the summer of '44.

If its a tourist enclave today that's not always a bad thing. It was just a nice place to hang out in a sidewalk cafe, and its only seven miles inland from the D-Day beaches.

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The tapestry photos again, the sign said "no photos" but I discretely took a couple of quick shots, no flash.

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Ya know, I finally got to watch some of the highly touted "Game of Thrones" HBO series on the nine and a half hour flight from Heathrow to Dallas this past Monday. I found it silly, sorta like a Dark Ages "Star Trek" wherein they could just make stuff up, in this case magic forces as necessary to advance the plot. Worse, it subscribes to the present PC fallacies of women in combat.

But, fans of that series will be familiar with this general scenario: Just north of Bayeux on the Normandy Coast, "La Sente au Batard". "William the Bastard's path", still remembered by that name more'n 900 years after the fact.

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1036, William's father Richard (who may have previously poisoned his own brother) died during his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. William, the eight year-old presumptive heir, was immediately placed in peril on account of his homicidal uncles and cousins. Somehow he survived the next ten years as a political pawn but matters came to a head when he reached eighteen years of age.

With the help of allies he was able to slip out from amongst his enemies to friendlier ground around Falais. The route he took on that precipitous flight became known as La Sente au Batard.

No worries, 20 years later he would became the last foreign invader to successfully invade England where he is commonly remembered today as William the Conqueror. Eleven years after that, half-brother Bishop Odo commissions the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry, giving the Norman side of the story.


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Mont St Michel over by Britanny officially is part of Normandy, anyone guessing would say it lies in Brittany. Normandy starts suddenly when you turn the corner north at Avranches. Suddenly the whole place is greener and wetter as reflected in the vegetation.

It is also reflected in the churches. Travelling backroads France you're basically travelling between church steeples, every town and village has one. Steeples in Brittany run tall, ornate and pierced, Norman church steeples are about like Norman castles; square and stout.

Case in point; the church steeple in St. Mare-Eglise, where in the early hours of June 6th, 1944, American Paratrooper John Steel hung wounded for two hours, playing dead while German troops milled about in the square below. He had been shot while coming down in his chute, most of the rest of his stick had been shot and killed the same way.

[Linked Image]

The corner of the steeple he actually hung from is the one closest to the camera. St. Mare-Eglise is actually a tourist attraction now because of D-Day, there is a major well-presented Airborne museum there now, right on the town square.

As part of this, a mannequin representing Pvt. Steel is left hanging from a different corner of the steeple facing this museum.

[Linked Image]

Which brings up the issue of how he got down.

After two hours it was the Germans themselves that noticed Steel was alive and who brought him down from the tower. He was their prisoner for a period of time until the Germans themselves were captured.

Here's some images from the museum, a Waco glider also crash-landed in the town that night.

[Linked Image]

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And now a post on bicycles, interesting to me at least grin

I'm not a bicycle fanatic, I do not own any lycra or spandex but I am enormously taken with this simple device that lets me, an older guy with an older guy's knees, travel easily across whole continents.

Here's mine on Day 32 at St. Mere-Eglise, in back are two more contemporary-style touring bikes.

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Bicycle touring is pretty big in mainland Europe, once I hit the coast I'd see maybe six to ten each day, most often older couples.

What you see there is the hot set-up for touring.

We both have 36 spoke custom wheels. Theirs are 26", mine are 700. Mine are 700 because my 1989 model bike originally came with 27" wheels and the rims gotta be about that diameter to reach the brakes. Seemingly unusual that Euro bikes like theirs would have English-size rims but this is because 26" wheels and tires are the most common size in India and South America and other backwaters around the World. So if you are there you can maybe still get tires, tubes, spokes etc....

Hence, 26" wheels are the mark of an uber serious touring bike and there's a certain cachet attached, even if ya never get to those places. For the same reason they have old-style center-pull rim brakes instead of disk brakes. I have rim brakes because my bike is from 1989.

They are using Schwalbe Marathon tires from Germany, again the uber-serious touring bike tire, practically indestructible. I myself commute on 'em on my mountain bike.

Back in 1989, generators for your lights were clumsy things that were turned by friction against the tires, mine attached underneath the frame behind the pedals and made a noise along with perceptible drag. Nowadays we have LED lights which revolutionized bicycle lights as well as drawing less power, AA or AAA lithium batteries last many hours, old-style generators are gone.

The hot touring bike set-up now is to have a generator incorporated inside a larger front wheel hub that powers things via USB connections, including your smart phone and/or GPS that rides on a bracket on the handlebar. This is the set up these people have.

We are all using Brook's leather saddles from England, old tech that still works better than anything else, even if you have to put covers on 'em when it rains.

Check out their hi-tech seat posts grin

The handlebars we are using are called "trekking bars", the principle behind 'em is that you have numerous places to put your hands to avert fatigue. I find their chief value is they give you lots of places to hang mirrors and such, I've even tried cup holders.

We both are geared low with triple chainrings up front, I have nine speeds in back, I dunno how may they have, anywhere from eight to ten I'd guess. I use the original friction shift levers on the downtube, they have hi-tech indexing thumb shifters attached to the brake levers.

All of us are using regular platform pedals, these allow normal footwear, no one is racing here, we don't gotta have our shoes attached to the pedals. Plus for me being able to move my feet around on the pedal allows me to mostly avoid knee pain.

Both their bikes and mine can attach three water bottle holders, in Normandy I didn't need all three, in fact I was only carrying two, the bottom one, an MSR fuel bottle inside my San Antonio Spurs coozee, was holding scotch whiskey.

Steel is the most favored material for touring bikes because it flexes, exactly what you don't want on most other bikes. Steel frames are heavier too but far more comfortable when ridden for long hours every day. Mine is an 1989 Schwinn Voyageur frame.

Their frames are probably expensive, maybe custom-made, this is popular in Europe. "Cyclo-randonee" so far as I can tell is the name of a Euro touring bike website, tho' I did not see frames for sale on it.

I dunno who made their bags, I'm using German-made Orleibs. What you see on my bike is $400 worth of bags, expensive and heavy but absolutely waterproof and indestructible. Theirs look to be of like quality.


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Time to move the thread along a bit.

After a week in France it was time to head for the ferry at Cherbourg, an easy day, only 35 miles.

Two places on the way above Utah Beach I wish I woulda known more about at the time...

The German coastal battery at Crisbecq near St. Marcouf de L'Isle which according to this road sign was only about three miles out of my way...

[Linked Image]

The other I stopped at because it did have a sign for it, the Azeville Battery, seven miles inland. A collection of bunkers connected by hundreds of yards of underground tunnels. More than 200 men were assigned here.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Tho why they put a anti-aircraft fixture on top of a structure shielded by tons of concrete I dunno...

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When I saw this one with trees and such painted on I thought it was the work of misguided hippies in the 70's, but it turns out the Germans themselves painted it like that, as camouflage...

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The commander at Cribecq was a grimly efficient bastard who sank a Destroyer and killed a lot of Americans before making his escape.

http://h2g2.com/entry/A37321751

At Azeville a 14" shell from the USS Nevada eight miles out passed through an artillery bunker without exploding, killing by air compression or shards of concrete everyone in inside.

The Commander of the installation, one Dr. Hugo Treiber, was a less than ardent Nazi and very popular with his men. He saved the lives of most when he surrendered when defeat became inevitable.

http://www.oisterwijk-marketgarden.com/the_azeville_battery.html

Birdwatcher








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Then suddenly it seemed like the trip was drawing to a close, all I had left was the 350 to 400 miles back up England to Blackpool.

One concern was the ferries from Cherbourg to England all left towards the end of the day and disembarked at their destination after 10pm. This could have been a real problem for a guy on a bicycle in a big city and at best would probably mean an expensive and short hotel stay.

Fortunately there was a choice of destinations, the built-up urban center of Portsmouth vs. the much smaller Poole. I chose Poole.

Before my screw-up of disembarking in Brittany instead of Normandy I had originally intended to cross over from Calais so as to witness the migrant camps and to see the famous white cliffs of Dover. As it was the much less renowned beige cliffs of Poole would have to do instead grin

[Linked Image]

Even landing in a smaller community, I was still facing something of an ordeal getting off the ferry as I did close to 11pm. My options were 1) find a quiet and safe spot to sleep, not easy to do after dark and Poole, small as it was, was still not country. 2) Find a campground, but the nearest was four miles off and some sort of "resort", not ordinarily the sort of place that welcomes homeless-looking tent traveller. Or 3) a hotel, this was a distant third, I just weren't into paying $100 or so just for a roof at that point.

As it was I didn't have to worry, there were lots of folks parked in lines overnight waiting for an early-morning ferry, in an area provided with showers and free bathrooms for the nominal fee of 5 pounds per night cool

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I set up my tent without stakes on pavement in a sheltered spot out of the wind and slept until daylight.

Cork/Cobh back in Ireland had been a tremendous natural harbor, a small opening leading to a series of sheltered bays. The morning light revealed that Poole was the same way. Hordes of private craft, big and small. England is a crowded place.

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One thing that struck me from the get-go, the older rows of houses were so distinctively British Isles, in stark contrast to the ones in France just a short distance away across the Channel.

[Linked Image]


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Heading north out of Poole at Knowlton; just yer average 900 year old British church inside yer average 4,500 year old British earthwork. I was proud of myself, having just come from there, by then I already new what Norman architecture looked like.

I look at places like this and see all the stories there. 900 years ago this was quite the status symbol for the local big shots. I wonder where they thought the earthwork came from and why they put their church in it.

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And not far away, a different sort of antique...

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..and shades of Terlingua, which just then seemed very far away, I've been there....

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Further along, something I'm now kicking myself over.

I didn't take the time to go into Salisbury Cathedral, beautiful as it undoubtedly was inside and out. After all I was just at Bayeux. But damn, I didn't know they had an original copy of the MAGNA CARTA on display.

http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/magna-carta/visiting-magna-carta

[Linked Image]

Next time I'm through there on a bicycle I'll be all over it crazy






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Nudging the thread along some more.

I found Britain to be prettier than Ireland, there's more parts to it, different landforms, whereas away from the West Coast Ireland seemed sorta uniform; rolling glaciated terrain.

Much of the south of England has always been surprisingly open terrain, seemingly shallow soils over an underlaying bedrock of chalk. So it was more'n 50 miles inland from the coastal chalk cliffs, in the 19th Century the locals could create two rival images of a horse by scraping away the overlaying dirt. Here's one....

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Not far from Stonehenge, this general regions IIRC is referred to as the Salisbury Plain...

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There was a large and sparsely populated military training area and RAF facility. While crossing this area on a quiet backroad I had my second great good fortune of the trip.

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Moments after taking that grassland pic towards the end of a long day, one of the bolts holding the front luggage rack to the forks, one that bore most of the weight, sheared off and broke after three years and more'n 5,000 miles of use. I had no extra bolts long enough to replace it so was effectively sidelined.

Not five minutes after that happened a former Serviceman and plane mechanic pulled up in his worked-over Landrover to see if I needed help. One of them natural genius mechanics, the guy was hauling around practically a parts department in his vehicle. He found a bolt that fit and directed me to an inexpensive pub/campground not far away.

One of three former British Servicemen I conversed with on this trip, and in every case I was impressed.

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Avesbury.... home of the largest stone circle in Europe, I just saw parts of it passing through. A 4,000 year-old ring and ditch complex, hundreds of yards across complete with what was then a fifty ft deep ditch and avenues extending outwards a mile or more. Sixty miles inland I was still on chalk so the gleaming whiteness of the excavations when new must have been something to see...

Coming in from the east , a stone avenue....

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Part of a main ring....

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...and the encircling ditch. Sixty miles inland this was still over a chalk bedrock, originally more than fifty feet deep this ditch and bank system must have been gleaming white when new, all of this done by hand without iron tools.

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England is very old, and also very crowded, especially the South. This was only about 100 miles west of the London Metropolitan Area and quite unlike when I was a kid, nowadays lots of people in the UK own cars.

The result is the highway infrastructure is way overcrowded, especially off of the Motorways (Interstates). What you have is a whole network of "A" and "B" roads, for the most part all just two lane, with absolutely no shoulder to speak of most places and with long stretches where hedgerows or stone walls extend up to or even overhang the asphalt.

As a result you end up riding the fog stripe with vehicles passing about two or three feet off your right handlebar, while lots of times brushing the hedgerows on your left side (they drive on the left in the UK and Ireland). Semi trucks and buses were the worst.

I had two wrecks in England, only ones of the whole trip, both of which actually dropped me out in the middle of the lane. One was early in the trip up in Northumbria where in heavy rain,not able to see the ground under deep puddles, I put a wheel of the edge of the asphalt. The other of which, north of Poole in the far South, was caused by my bags on the left side catching a dead tree branch laying under a hedgerow and pulling it under the bike. I just got lucky both times that there was no one passing right then.

Despite these riding conditions, road cycling at speed has become enormously popular in England (by "MAMILs"; middle-aged men in lycra grin ). Singles and packs of these guys are a familiar road hazard for Brit drivers, and your average driver or trucker over there is enormously patient by US standards when stacked up behind these guys on the usual heavily-traveled narrow roadways. Even so, when they do manage to pass they have to squeeze by just a couple of feet away.

In wanting to head north out of Avebury I was in a fix: The only road north was an especially crowded "A" road, heavy with truck traffic. I could have done it, but for the whole ten miles to the adjacent Swindon urban area I would have been tailed by my own convoy of backed-up traffic trying to pass.

I ended up on ten miles of dirt, much of which would have been tough even on an unloaded mountain bike, which stretches I had to get off and walk. This was one of the many public footpaths across rural land in England, this one called "The Ridgeway", which apparently extends some considerable distance.

Nice views of the Wessex Downs from up there though....

[Linked Image]


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Beautiful countryside.

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Originally Posted by hanco
Beautiful countryside.


Yep, and I ain't even into the Pennines yet.

Anyways....

My target heading north was Bosworth Battlefield, where on August 22nd, 1485 the whole course of English history turned on a dime. The last major battle of the War of the Roses and the swan song of the Middle Ages. Richard III was the last English king to die in battle, and in that battle led the last charge of mounted knights in England. He led that charge in a do-or-die effort to personally take out Henry Tudor, and came within a hair's breadth of doing so, slaying both Henry's standard bearer and the largest of his bodyguards.

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On Richard's right flank his ally the Duke Norfolk had been attacked by the main Tudor force. On Richard's left flank his ally the Earl of Northumberland would not commit his forces when Richard so ordered, probably because Richard's OTHER ostensible ally William Stanley was further left again and Northumberland feared that Stanley might change sides and attack HIM.

At that point, just as the tide of battle was turning against Richard, Richard saw Henry Tudor and his retinue far across the field.

But in charging headlong across the battlefield along with just his own retinue of knights, Richard passed across the front of the Stanleys. Seeing Richard so isolated, William Stanley launched his whole force, surrounding Richard with overwhelming numbers and cutting him down.

In the press of battle Richard's armored steed became mired in a bog. Far from calling for a horse as Shakespeare had him do, the most credible accounts have Richard refusing the offer of a horse, announcing his preference for dying in battle while still a king, and then wading into "the thickest press of his foes".

In that estimation Richard was exactly right, in that era the losers could face peculiarly brutal fates beyond mere execution. One prior contender taken alive was simply starved to death in a dark castle dungeon, and after Richard's demise an unfortunate young relative and potential contender to the throne was taken into custody and held in solitary confinement to the point of permanent idiocy before being quietly, and probably mercifully, executed.

[Linked Image]

Whoops, gotta run, pics later.

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The Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Center, excellent, as you'd expect a British Museum to be.

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The two principals; Henry Tudor, soon to become Henry VII, and Richard III, who would be dead that same morning. Richard wore a crown into battle....

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Richard was 32, Henry was 27, Richard was of the House of York, Henry was of part-Welsh ancestry and somewhat distantly related to the House of Lancaster. Both had been sent into exile in Europe as children for their own safety. Henry would spend most of his life in France, subject to periodic extradition attempts by the Yorkists.

Richard had been recalled from Holland at age nine when his Yorkist older brother Edward became king. His combat career began at age seventeen and for the next eleven years until his brother's death he was constantly engaged in both punitive expeditions against and negotiations with both nobles and commoners in England, Wales and Scotland. Even his enemies agreed that Richard was a brawler, a true warrior king. It was no accident that he attempted to take matters literally into his own hands at Bosworth.

OTOH some historians have described Henry Tudor as "bookish" rather than a warrior, he WAS undoubtedly an uncommonly bright guy who would subsequently hold on to power for the next twenty-four years, beginning with the adroit move of making Richard's own niece his queen, thereby allying the warring Houses. Upon his death the crown would pass on to his son Henry VIII, and ultimately to his granddaughter Elizabeth I.

Armor had been steadily improving over the Centuries,and by the 15th accomplished much at a penalty of surprisingly little weight. IIRC the best armor of the period came from Germany and Italy.

[Linked Image]

Good armor was very expensive, and a status symbol, only a small minority were armored this well at Bosworth. Still, looking at them one does wonder why they were packing swords rather than the various war picks and hammers of that era specifically designed for use against armor.

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I can't imagine having that armor on and actually trying to do something in it. Much less something as physical as a prolonged battle. eek



Very informative thread, Mike!

How do you rate this last trip compared to others you have been on?


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Classic feudalism....

[Linked Image]

...but by the Battle of Bosworth changes were underway. The Black Death had wiped out nearly half the population a generation or two earlier, paradoxically improving the lot of the survivors. In the aftermath of the plague labor was in demand, putting the common man in a better position to negotiate.

In terms of combat this meant that many of the levies also drew pay, and a noble had to look after the welfare of his forces or face widespread desertion. Around 2,000 of Henry's 5,000-man army were in fact not levies at all but mercenaries, professional warriors from France, "the roughest men in Normandy". Although outnumbered by Richard's 10,000 man army the presence of this hard core would prove decisive. When Richard made the attack that almost succeeded, Henry, who took no personal part in the fighting, was able to find refuge amid these mercenaries.

Significant that the levy applied to men "between the ages of 16 and 60". Judging by skeletal battlefield remains the common man of that era was surprisingly robust, not too far off what one would expect in modern times.

Swords, daggers and bows never went out of style, this being the era of the longbow, but the primary infantry weapon was at that time a pole arm; a halberd or bill about five or six feet long. These could be used to stab like spears or swung like an axe, and their spikes or hooks could be used to catch the armor of an opponent and cause them to fall.

Probably an English guy armed with a bill, the jacket or brigandeen contained sewn-in metal plates.

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A guy in a video vignette portraying a farmer called up as an archer in Richard's levies, here wearing a helmet passed down by his father and, being a good archer, stating he was getting paid a shilling a day which "wasn't bad".

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The museum portrays him as being cut down later during the rout of Richard's forces. His jacket is likely padded with wool or horsehair which would offer some protection.

A man-at-arms, sort of a middle rank in the feudal levies, who was expected to muster his own company from among the lower classes. This guy is carrying a halberd as well as a sword and buckler (small shield}.

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Surprising to me was the presence of mobile artillery at that early date, firing lead cannonballs.

[Linked Image]

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Quote
I can't imagine having that armor on and actually trying to do something in it. Much less something as physical as a prolonged battle. eek


The problem with armor was most likely overheating rather than weight. Good armor was remarkably lightweight but one wore a protective layer of heavy clothing under it. Judging from the head wounds on his remains, Richard most likely removed his helmet after dismounting from his mired horse, possibly because he was overheating after having just taken out two opposing knights in combat.

Overall though, IIRC the dynamics of medieval battles are still uncertain. Even today highly trained athletes can't flail around with hand-held weapons for extended periods of time like they do in the movies. Plus staged modern-day melees involving trained swordsmen would have been so lethal with real weapons that most everybody involved would have died or gotten maimed inside of the first two minutes.

The gist seems to be that actual combats were swift and deadly, over in seconds, just like successful gunfights today, and presumably one avoided fighting fair whenever possible.

Quote

How do you rate this last trip compared to others you have been on?


The Isle of Man with my son followed by forty days on a bicycle?

Hey, in a league by itself cool













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A map of the battlefield looking southwest...

[Linked Image]

Henry Tudor's 5,000 man army arrived at the top of this map, Richard's 10,000 man force deployed on high ground to the right of and below the map. The 6,000 men under the Stanleys were deployed on high ground around Stoke Golding and Dadlington. The canal that crosses the battlefield wasn't there in 1485.

The field is not complicated to understand, IIRC most Medieval battlefields are that way. Feudal levies were not trained in cohesive maneuvers, for the most part they were formed up in some sort of logical arrangement at the start and then attacked, or stood to receive an attack. There weren't much material there for a Stonewall Jackson or Bobby Lee to work with.

Henry's force maneuvered around the wetland marked as Richard's death site towards the right hand side of the top of the map. Norfolk moved forward from the right to engage but was routed and scattered. Perhaps the feudal levies were no match for the hardened Norman mercenaries.

Nowadays, due to tree cover, its hard to make out much. This is the view taken looking across the battlefield from the "You Are Here" marker.

[Linked Image]

But back then that same spot looked more like this; intensively cultivated.

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At that point, looking across that open battlefield from his higher vantage point, Richard saw Henry Tudor and his entourage from more than a mile away move from behind his army towards the Stanley forces amassed around Stoke Golding. Plainly the fix was in, and when Stanley threw his 6,000 men into the mix on Henry's side it would be all over.

That's when Richard launched his charge of mounted knights, the last such charge in English history, down the slope and through the battle. Richard's entourage collided with that of Henry on the slopes below Stoke Golding, Richard in the lead.

Homing right in on his target, Richard broke his lance killing Sir William Brandon who was holding Henry's standard. Richard himself slight of build, then collided with the burly 6 foot 8 inch jousting champion Sir John Cheyne, striking the man on the helmet with the broken lance and knocking him from his horse. Meanwhile Henry was running, fleeing back to the cover of his own infantry. It had been a close thing, accounts suggest Richard came "within a sword's length" of taking out Henry.

Stanley launched his forces into the melee, the press of fighting men being driven west towards the low ground where Richard's horse became mired in the marsh. That is the area where he went down fighting.

Here it is on the ground, dry land now but a bog back then, looking southwest from the intersection of Fenn and Mill Lanes.

[Linked Image]

...and from that same spot looking back northeast towards the high ground from where Richard launched his charge....

[Linked Image]

After the battle, legend has it that Richard's crown was found hanging from a hawthorn bush on the battlefield. Wherever the crown was found, an impromptu coronation celebration by the elated victors was held up on the hill at Stoke Golding under an oak tree.

Two pictures I missed. I seen the high ground where Richard was close by when I was over at that end of the field, but at the time it was raining and I was pushing the bike, I knew I really should go up there to take a look but didn't, not appreciating the significance of it at that moment in time.

The other photo I missed was in Stoke Golding. Apparently the oak tree where legend has it Henry received his crown is still standing.

And durn it, had I actually stopped in Salisbury Cathedral earlier in the trip and seen the Magna Carta, turns out Sir John Cheyne, the huge knight unhorsed by Richard, is buried there too.

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I would really love to see the Brit Isles as would my wife. Thanks for the visit via proxy Mike.


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Originally Posted by T LEE
I would really love to see the Brit Isles as would my wife. Thanks for the visit via proxy Mike.


You're very welcome T.

I think the thing to do, if you can stand to camp, is join the UK Camping and Caravanning Club for around $100/year. They have a couple of thousand camp sites all over the UK, usually for around $20/night or less. Trains over there go everywhere but they have gotten stupid expensive, but car rentals are about the same price as here.

Anyways, back 531 years....

Richard's corpse was stripped and thrown over a horse "with his privates shamefully exposed" and it was taken twelve miles east to the town of Leicester, from whence Richard had departed that morning. There it was hung out on public display lest their be any doubts as to his death.

After a few days the corpse began to stink, so it was interred in a hastily dug grave in chapel nave of the nearby Greyfriars Priory. A priory was in effect a small monastery wherein public access to the chapel was limited. In this way Richard was afforded a technically Christian burial, placating future dissent, but at the same time the grave could not become a focal point for neither desecration nor worship, a clever solution that to me has Henry Tudor written all over it.

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Shakespeare thoroughly maligned Richard III, also giving him a hunchback and a withered arm. Perhaps he genuinely believed it was so, having been raised in the Tudor era and, more to the point, presenting the play during the reign of Henry Tudor's granddaughter Elizabeth I. In reality Richard's curvature of the spine may not have been quite so severe as his recovered skeleton suggests, the corpse having been hastily interred in a half-upright slouching position in an undersized grave.

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The most henious crime one can lay at Richard's feet is his near-certain responsibility for the murder of his two young nephews in the Tower of London, a crime motivated in part by the grasping ambitions of their mother, one of the notorious Woodville clan.
I dunno that killing your late brother's kids to cement one's own hereditary claims was especially henious by feudal standards, but perhaps having it done in a venue like the Tower was, and certainly provided fodder to his enemies.

Richard's own heir had died in infancy, and his wife succumbed to tuberculosis. Richard weren't a hunchback, but one shoulder was visibly higher than the other, and the fact there was a total eclipse the day his wife died may well have been regarded as bad juju in those superstitious times.

His brief two year reign was in some ways exemplary, IIRC one of his decrees guaranteeing the right of the common man to speak at legal proceedings, another incremental step towards the freedoms we ourselves take for granted today.

OTOH while Richard probably murdered his two young nephews, Henry certainly married their nineteen year-old sister and made her his Queen. If it weren't a love match at the start, surely there was worse matches for her than Henry who was so reasonable everywhere else. IIRC she bore him five children.

Henry Tudor was a money and management guy rather than a warrior. He was smart enough to forgive most of his erstwhile Yorkist enemies and leave them in place. He also avoided ruinous foreign wars. One more battle against Yorkist rebels came two years later, but it was a brief affair, easily won. He also passed laws limiting the ability of the nobles to maintain their own standing armies. Prob'ly the real secret to his twenty-four year reign is that he brought stability and prosperity to the realm, and during the subsequent Tudor Century England developed a sense of itself as a nation.

Ten years after Richard's death, his reign secure and perhaps out of a sense of guilt, Henry provided an alabaster grave marker over Richard's grave. Whatever his actions in life, Richard had been an anointed King of England, a thing which still carries weight there to this day.

Thirty-three years later Henry's son Henry VIII had Greyfriars torn down during his dissolution of the church. Exposed to the elements, the soft alabaster would have quickly eroded but enough remained one hundred years later that an English gentleman whose house had been built upon the site could proudly show the remnants of it to visitors to his garden.

Another two hundred years again, in the Nineteenth Century, a school was built upon the site, at which time IIRC Richard's skeleton may have lost its feet to an outhouse excavation. In time the old school became a government building, and the site of the old house garden the now-famous parking lot.

IIRC it took some doing for some archaeologists to get permission to dig the site in what was regarded as at best a distant long shot, but when they did start digging much to theirs and everyone else's surprise they found Richard's remains with the first trench.

This time around he was buried right; first returned to the battlefield in a coffin and then given an honor guard to a second internment at Leicester Cathedral.

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After I had seen Bosworth Field the last target was checked off the list. In 36 days and 1,200 miles on a bicycle I had seen the Lake District, Hadrian's Wall, Glasgow, Loch Lomond, Argyll, the Kintyre Peninsula, Ulster, the Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, Skibbereen, Cobh, Brittany, Mont. St. Michel, Normandy, the Bayeux Tapestry, Omaha Beach, St.Mere Eglise, Cherbourg, Poole, Avebury and Bosworth Field. Plus all the scenery in between.

All that was left now was about another 200 miles back to where I started, Blackpool, to hang out with my Brit cousins, their kids, and their grandchildren.

Wherever possible on this trip I had avoided urban areas. They are just too slow to navigate, the lodging is expensive, and if I ran into a pack of urban thugs, exposed and slow as I was on a bicycle, I could lose all my stuff. I will allow that last worry was prob'ly in part a result of my own urban childhood over there in the '60's.

Still, Bosworth lies sorta in the middle of England proper, and between me and Blackpool on the most direct route lay the Manchester metropolitan area, further west again, Liverpool. If I went north up the more level and flat east side of England I would have to get through or around Sheffield. So instead I aimed up the rural middle, planning a route through the scenic Peak District National Park, tho I knew the many hills would slow my progress. I was going to cross the Peak District south to north, thread my way north and west through the Pennines, and then turn west north of Manchester and Preston to get to Blackpool.

To get to the south end of the Peak District I had to get forty miles from Bosworth north and west to Ashbourne. I set out mid-afternoon.

Pretty fast progress by my standards, I was on the outskirts of Ashbourne by evening despite a slow and surreal three mile segment en route steered by my phone app along footpaths through weedy fields, and up abandoned driveways choked with brambles, past no trespassing signs and suprised unemployed louts smoking cigarettes, and then sliding the bike under a locked gate in Burton-on-Trent.

Back in the sticks again not far south of Ashbourne I had my closest call of the trip.

I was rolling downhill on a country lane barely wide enough for a single car, said lane hemmed in on each side by tall hedges.Ahead was a blind curve going right, all curves on that stretch being blind on account of the narrowness of the pavement and the tall hedges. Coming down that same lane somewhere behind me I could hear a big truck approaching at an unwise rate of speed.

I swept around the corner and there was a car, right there, coming the other way. Fortunately there was a wide spot on my side just then, on my left on the outside of the turn, right after the curve, giving access to two fields on the left.

One of them instant reaction deals; the lady in the car hit the brakes, I bailed off the pavement, and looking to escape the vicinity of the imminent head-on 'tween car and truck, bounced up a short grassy bank, across some rough grass and ended up right up on the two gates to the fields.

The milk tanker truck, for such it was, driven by a young Polish guy as it turned out, came around the turn going too fast, seen the car, hit the brakes and bounced up that same grassy bank, across that same rough grass, and ended up right next to me up on the gates, close to pinning me against them. I'm guessing the milk tank was empty, hence his high rate of speed to begin with and his subsequent rapid deceleration.

The British lady driving the car was all shocked and angry at the truck driver and said he almost killed me, from her angle it looked like he HAD killed me. The young Polish driver was shaken and apologetic. For me it was one of them almost-doesn't-count-except-in-horseshoes deals, over too quick to get worked up about. I expect it woulda looked scary on Youtube, but when all was said and done no harm no foul. After a little we all continued on our respective ways.

Thinking back on this just now I realize that, had he been hauling a load, or a bigger one than he was and had pulled that same evasive maneuver, he woulda swept wider, taken me out from behind and then crushed both gates. But..... didn't happen.

A short while later I came across this pub, the Shire Horse. Since I was only about a mile or so from the campground I was aiming for I stopped in for a pint.

[Linked Image]

Apart from working farms, the English countryside has gotten very gentrified, even modest old houses going for the better part of a million pounds. Nowhere is very far from a major metropolitan area with their associated moneyed professionals and successful entrepreneurs.

Many things have changed in England since my youth, but one thing that ain't is a sort of widespread snobbery and class consciousness among many moneyed professionals and successful entrepreneurs.

It was very much an urban moneyed crowd in the pub, not all of course were upper class twits but several seemed to be.

The flip side of that among this crowd is a remarkable innate restraint against complaining and a pained but passive tolerance of unwashed eccentrics passing through. One guy thought it would be funny if I camped under a horse chestnut tree across the road from the pub on a small patch of grassy public right-of-way, I could see the humor in that so I obliged. Plus the pub also had good food and free wifi.

Met some friendly people, had some good conversation, but later that night while crashed out in my tent I head a passing lady to her husband "Oh, I don't think THAT is good at all!, why did they let him camp there!".

Actually, I expect I coulda camped out right on that lady's front lawn and she woulda been too polite to kick me off grin

...and, out of consideration for the Pub owner, I was gone at first light, left the place cleaner than I found it.

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Main drag, Asbourne in the morning. One thing about this trip, there ain't any diners in the places I went. My favorite thing was to buy a newspaper and have a proper sit-down greasy breakfast. Lots of times "breakfast" places wouldn't open until 8, 9 or even 10.

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The other thing is, Ashbourne might have housed regular poor Working Class folks at one time, but lots of country places in England have gone gentrified, city money. Fer example, I had passed through the Cotswolds Hills coming north, which rustic inhabitants Monty Python used to make fun of. Ain't no hicks left there today, not that I saw, just upscale. OTOH, when ya got that sort of clientele, they have these sort of objects of natural beauty in their antique stores (this being an actual antique store on the main drag in Ashbourne)....

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I'll say one thing about Ashbourne, they don't mess around when it comes to hike and bike trails, this one follows an old rail bed up into the Peaks District...

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Of course, in England the term "Peak District" is relative, we ain't talking the Rocky Mts here. Still, it was nice to get lofted up to hilltop elevations on a quiet and gentle grade and not to have to rub shoulders with traffic for a bit. A view from that same trail, ten miles down the line:

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did you get my text yesterday?


God bless Texas-----------------------
Old 300
I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull
Its not how you pick the booger..
but where you put it !!
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I just sent a reply.

Hey tks for the heads up cool


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The Peak District National Park is maybe 50 miles south to north, but it took me a day and a half to cross. Partly the terrain, and partly because I quit early on the first day in when I came across a youth hostel at Castleton. Whatever happened I weren't but a few days away from being done, and it gave me a chance to catch up on laundry and download pics.

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These are the series of reservoirs in the Upper Derwent Valley, in 1943 Lancaster Bombers were roaring up this shot, training for the Dam Busters mission.

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The Peak District marks the southern end of the Pennines, an ancient Carboniferous-era anticline extending up the center of England. Once you leave the park on the Northern end you are still in the Pennines. Might be the only difference is outside the park they can do stuff like this....

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What I was doing after I got north of the park was crossing north over a series of steep-sided valleys running west to east. The going was slow. Everyone understands getting off to walk uphill,but there were places I got off to walk down uber-steep stretches, otherwise I was having to squeeze so hard on the brakes I feared the cables would pull loose.

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Last morning, tho I didn't expect so at the time. I was 65 miles from Blackpool by my route and on account of the steep-sided valleys had only made 40 miles the day before. I didn't know exactly when I would escape the Pennines.

Looking back, this seems now like my last morning of what had been 40 days of total freedom. I could easily live rootless on a bicycle like this (provided I had an outside income of course grin). This was adjacent to the M65 (??) maybe four miles west of Huddersfield. The adjacent interstate notwithstanding, it was a beautiful night. Slept with the tent open but ya gotta have some sort of cover else in that climate you'll wake up drenched with dew.

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That last day would also bring some of the prettiest scenery of the whole trip. This is just north of the interstate. I was in the region of Yorkshire called the West Riding.

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This is looking north, my general direction of travel, in the background crossing from west to east you can see the Calder River Valley and the location of the town of Sowerby Bridge, travelling west along this valley would be my ticket out of the endless hills of the Pennine Chain.

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The Calder River at Sowerby Bridge.

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And a note on breakfast.

Stopping to load up on grease and hot tea while reading the newspaper in the morning was my big indulgence on this trip. Only place this couldn't be done was in France where they eat bread in the morning. Most times this would run me about $15. The most I had paid had been nearly $30 in an upscale touristy place with no other alternatives maybe three days earlier.

At Sowerby Bridge, last morning, I came across the best deal of the trip, maybe $9 total, open at 7am as well cool The Sowerby Bridge Market, so popular with working folk that getting a photo was difficult.

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Nirvana in the morning....

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"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Great read. Thanks for the effort!


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All this talk of bicycles on the forum got me thinking about moving this thread along.....

Last day. Over the previous two days coming north along England's spine, the Pennines, I had been laboriously traversing one steep-sided valley after another, I wasn't making big miles and it was getting old.

At that point I was overjoyed to find that Sowerby Bridge lay in the Calder River Valley, and that a canal actually ran along that valley, heading west, the direction I needed to turn.

Canals and old railroad bed trails; a cyclist's best friend when crossing though mountains.....

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At this point I start running out of photos. I'm thinking that I felt that I already have enough (wrong, turns out you can never have too many photos). What happened was, when I hit the Calder River Valley and started knocking back the miles over level ground, a 65 mile day to Blackpool started looking very doable.

One thing that surprised me was how far west across England the streams and rivers draining to the East Coast extend. I was over by Manchester, England, heading west up the Calder River Valley, and STILL had not crossed over the divide to hit the Western slopes and the downhill run to Blackpool on the West Coast.

The official marked bicycle trails, as they often do, would have had me do a steep climb north out of the Calder Valley and resume my valley-hopping again. Fortunately this was a Sunday, and the roads were loaded with packs of British bicycle people, the lycra crowd. I got good directions from a guy at a stoplight who spoke my language, the language of grades and slopes and the lack thereof.

He understood my dilemma immediately. Turns out if I followed the Calder upstream to Todmorden, I could hang a right take the A646 going northwest. This road followed a rail line (always a good sign) and finally lifted me up and over the divide, threading me between and around the urban centers of Accrington, Burnley and Blackburn.

I made rapid progress, and only paused to take two photos of any note. This one is looking southwest towards Preston, from the high ground overlooking that town.

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...and this one is mostly of note to those who know Blackpool, and its famous tower. This was my first view of Blackpool Tower, which sits on the seafront, taken from the perspective of coming from the east across the flat region known as The Fylde.

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Not too long thereafter there I was, back at my cousin's place, after 40 days on the road cool

Here I am with the Black Shadow (Heck, its only a bicycle but it should have a name. It was given to me thirty years ago by a woman who loved me, sat around mostly unused for the next 25 years, but w in recent years it has carried me on some extraordinary journeys).

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At that point I had a week left in England to enjoy the company of kin, but there was in there one more long day on my bicycle, pics to follow....





"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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Glad you are enjoying yourself still!

Re Manchester...physically it is much nearer the West coast than it is the East...

However the water shed in this part of the UK does not run centrally north/south, but is off towards the east by a factor as you found out..The Calder eventually merges with other rivers and hit the sea on north east coast where as you needed to be going roughly North West to get to Blackpool!

Once you get out of the towns, the canals really do go through some lovely countryside...I've not been for many years, but I've an inkling to hire a barge and book a weeks holiday on the canals somewhere...


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Campfire 'Bwana
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Quote

Once you get out of the towns, the canals really do go through some lovely countryside...I've not been for many years, but I've an inkling to hire a barge and book a weeks holiday on the canals somewhere...


Pete, I have a twenty-something nephew lives on a canal boat, more about that later.

And I must apologize Sir for not finding the time to meander through Wales, not meeting you in person being one of the few things I missed getting done on this trip.

Anyways... back to the thread.

Back with my cousins and their kids, a couple of days went by and I was missing riding the bike. Thirty plus miles away to the northeast of Blackpool is a scenic pass in the western fringes of the Pennines called the Trough of Bowland.

Back in the 60's when I was a kid, relatively few folks in England owned cars, my granddad had one, and in the years before we left my father would fix up and drive old cars, I'm recalling three, two Austin sedans and a van, all of which had to be cranked by hand to start 'em up much of the time.

The Trough of Bowland was a place us kids would get driven to on occasion, for a picnic by a roadside stream there. Mid-week during my last week I took off for a seventy mile day to the Trough and back, a surprisingly easy and rapid journey without all my stuff aboard.

Some pics from that last day on a bike...

The purple stuff is heather, I flushed a covey (flock??) of red grouse riding through.

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Red Grouse are the British Isles race of the Willow Ptarmigan, seemed sorta odd to see a bird with Arctic roots in this essentially mild and wet locale.

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One picture I wish I woulda took on this day trip is when I came across a couple of hundred half-grown ring-neck peasants running loose around a farm house, in an adjacent field, and running in the road. Either just released or escaped.Seems like pheasant are pen-raised and released by the thousands all over England, for the hunting season in late summer and fall. Semi-tame pheasants walking around were a common sight the whole time I was over there.


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With this last day-trip my vacation was about done. Time to pack up the bike, airlines take 'em as oversize luggage if they pack small enough, I had found a used travel case with wheels for mine before I left.

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"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
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