Biking Day 4

(from my journal)

In Birr I saw a castle! My first castle! The public can’t go in though because a family lives there, the original family. It is one of only 12 castles in which a family still lives. The rest have been left vacant or turned into hotels. The man at the desk told me all of this, and that Northern Ireland has a National Trust which people can donate their castles to. Even then, they have to give a large sum of money for the maintaince and so as a result, many of the castles are just left empty and decaying.

After Birr Castle, I continued riding and went through the cute village of Banagher by the River Shannon. I missed my turnoff but a nice Irish man helped me find my way and even offered to drive me. I felt bad though because I kept asking him to repeat himself because I couldn’t understand his accent. After I left Banagher, there was a really bad snowstorm with strong sideways wind that left me wind burned. It even sleeted and that along with the sideways wind made it almost impossible to ride. When I finally got to Clonmacnoise (my final destination), I went down, saw the ruins at sunset, and took some beautiful pictures.

That night I stayed at the Kajon House B&B just outside of Clonmacnoise. John and Kate Brennan run it and they were soooo sweet and welcoming. I wish though that I had a camera each time I arrive unexpected at a B&B after a long day outside. They don’t know what to make of me. This was the case with John and he said that he would give me time to clean up before having a cup of tea. Haha, they always say that. Why don’t you “clean up”. I must look pretty bad! Well I know when I arrived at his door I had grease on my face from fixing my bicycle, and my face was horribly wind burned. Anyways, it turns out John used to own restaurants in Dublin and is an excellent chef. He made me an amazing dinner!