Part IV: Survival of the Cyclist Hi folks!
Ihr könnt euch sicher denken, dass die Radtour vom Fr, 23.10. bis Fr, 30.10. recht ereignisreich war und ich bin nicht fähig, alles in Prosa zu gießen. Aber da mein historischer Exkurs so textlastig war, werde ich mich hier auf Bilder rather short and limited comments.
If you want to follow our tour on a map can do this here coarse and blurred. Suffice it to say: The journey to the North East Coast was super nice and super tough! The little brown surveys on the card that is difficult for cyclists to climb crappy hill / mountains ...
route (300 km + X):
Day 1 : Omagh> Dungannon Day 2: Dungannon> near Moira in a tent
Day 3: Moira> Belfast
Day 4: Belfast> east of Ballymena at the coast near Carnlough (tent)
Day 5: Carnlough> Ballycastle
Day 6: Ballycastle> Limavady
Day 7: Limavady> Londonderry
Day 8: Londonderry> Omagh
Bottom: Near Omagh. My clothes were not very professional: Too heavy, too long. But reasonably waterproof. Just as our belongings on our Bicycles that we have with stable bags before the Irish weather protected
Gaetan. Always ahead 15 minutes ... What makes ;? of the
Gaetan, hero of cycling, conqueror of the Pyrenees, the clear winner of the yellow jersey and symbol of French (as you can read in the picture :-).
Day 1 in Dungannon. Shiny happy people
Day 2: Rain! Pitch a tent near the small town of Moira with wind and rain, the ground was uneven and wet. Can it really get worse? Ah yes, the tent (which we have borrowed from the Omagh Academy) was "turned inside out" so that we first put the inside of the tent in the rain and the mud. Gaetan Quote: "Stupid ...!" pupils are obvious reasons there no pictures of that day ...
Day 3, in Belfast. The uglier, but interesting side of the city: In the middle of nowhere the Peace Lines, border fences between Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. Pretty those things ...
high image below: The beautiful side of Belfast. Belfast City Hall.
Day 4, almost at night (the night began in a tent when it got dark, that is 17:30, which led to depression and bad jokes), on a field near the Antrim Glenn ** we defeated by bike have! or was it vice versa ??**. The "mountain" in the background is the hill, is said to have kept on St. Patrick as a slave sheep
pictures below. The same day, the same field. Links from our wheels, our tent in the middle of the wet grass!
Day 5: Beautiful views of the mountainous north-east coast. A prospect that doomed fought hard, was erradelt uh! My knees are on the third day already damned hurt and they do day after the tour is still a little bit.
This is so unfair. Is it the age or because I am not used to drive over 300 miles in 8 days? Well, yes I have survived ... survival of the cyclist, I appropriate it!
Day 6, after a night in a deserted house ( we thank the residents for the deposit of the key and trust!) and the downright boring simple route of 17 miles from Ballycastle to Coleraine, I went to a technical hitch with my bike and after up and down on the way Limavady but much laughter. And that's saying to me what, friends! But when we took our lunch break and the stomach with couscous and breads fully struck, we could once again enjoy the hard erradelte view.
Day 7: Limavady> Derry. Easy going, flat course. Take it easy with the exception of trucks that are on the main road towards the second largest city of Northern Ireland (which has less than 100,000 inhabitants!) Outdated and all the construction sites at the sidebar to us very close to the said Trucks crowded ... Well, no one has fallen and we live yet proven
picture below. Two "pacifist" in the historical city walls of Derry from the 17th Century (London) Derry's story reflects the conflict between Protestants and Catholics at least as evident as against Belfast. This I will probably but in my (soon to come?) tell and show more second historical excursion. Each of you knows determines the wall paintings from the Catholic quarter of the city: "You are now entering Free Derry" ...
Day 8: From Derry to Omagh, it was supposed to no major problems. I love the German word "actually" ... Actually, the track was well marked, should be without a hill to Strabane and went straight along the river Foyle. Only bad luck that Gaetan made the funny comment that it is quite nice mad about if we four plates on our last leg of his own. He said when Derry was a mile behind us. Two miles further we came against a cyclist in this super cycle, and muttered a warning that we did not understand. We are stumpfg drove until Gaetan something of thorns on the way and said, we heard a noise that we could freeze the blood in his veins: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF ....
And no, it was fortunately not four plates, we were "lucky": There were only three !!!!!! Mad as hell is not the word for what we felt. The Long story short: We had a lot of luck in bad luck: Not far from the bike path was forwarding BEKACKTEN Forma "bfast. The guys were super helpful and have a dry place in the large garage and tool given. Wonder of wonders, we have managed to remove the wheels, but our hero of bfast have offered us to bring us in one go with their delivery, together with our bikes in a van to Omagh. I can not tell you how relieved we were. Incidentally, it rained during the day with rain!
To our faces but not to lose completely, We have let six miles settle before Omagh and we drove in the rain on the main road the rest of the way home
Nevertheless, we have even without the Derry> (Strabane)> Omagh -. distance 300 km own efforts on the bikes back down!
Finally, I would like to thank, on behalf of Gaetan, all our hosts most sincerely. Because it makes no sense doing this in German, I paste the "Thanks-mail" in this entry ** with all the insider remarks that we just cyclists and the Particular host will understand **:
A Thousand Thanks to the best Hosts on the Island...
.. from Gaetan and Benjamin to all of you, who gave us a roof over our heads on our crazy hilly cycling trip in almost winter time.
...We thank Susanne for her warm Austrian hospitality and the lovely pasta. Thank you for the warm tea, the (literally!) great living room and for getting to know Chris and Dungannon's (Teenie-) Nightlife ;-).
...We thank Vanessa in Belfast, the Mural-Expert No.1, for interesting and shocking insights into the complicated and "troubled" history of the Northern Irish metropole. Thanks also for the comfortable accomodation and for using the washing machine for our disgusting cycling clothes.
... A big thank you to Elsa and her house mates in Layland Avenue (which was so f****ing hard to find between Layland Hights, Layland Farm, Layland Road etc.) for their trust towards us!!!! We enjoyed the satellite TV as much as the hot shower after a wet, long night in a tent! Now that we know your house, we've got to know you !
... Big time in Limavady with Eve! Thank you so much for your kind hospitality that we so much appreciated! You definitely spoilt us ! And watch out for lamposts, they are dangerous! Franks is definitely in the race for the best Northern Irish pub ...
... Last, but surely not least: Laetitia! Thank you very much for being a perfect and selfless host (we could not sleep well while thinking of you sleeping on the sofa!). We really appreciated the friendly city of Derry, the nice company and the Irish Music!
We really like to see you all in our home in Omagh to return the favour and to show you our nice wee town and ourt favorite Irish Pub McCann's around the corner! You are very welcome and we hope to see all of you soon!
All the best!
Gaetan & Benjamin