Irish Cycling Safaris by Maxine Jones
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Friday lunchtime and the rain was bouncing off the road. I was driving through barely moving Dublin traffic to buy a pac-a-mac. In three hours’ time I was to meet a group of 17 strangers in a Wexford hotel and set off with them on a cycling tour of the south-east. My previous cycling experience, circa 1966, was on a small-wheeled Raleigh with a large green tartan carrier at the back. Unable to find parking, I inched my way back home.
The next day I was freewheeling down towards Bannow Bay in glorious sunshine, the roads deserted, the warm, pine-scented breeze in my hair and the sound of chirruping insects in the hedgerows. I succumbed to an irrepressible urge to burst into song.
“That’s the most daunting bit over,” my newly assigned roommate had said the previous night after we’d all been introduced. It does take a bit of courage to join an organised holiday on your own. Our group gelled well. Ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s, we were seven South Africans (all but two resident in London), three Americans, one Austrian and six Brits, including me. Resident here for 13 years, I was occasionally called upon by Aidan, the guide, to back up something he said, affording me the status of honorary Irish person.
It was Aidan’s Irishness and his knowledge of the area - assuring us the best places to eat and stay and an insight into local history and customs - that made the trip particularly enjoyable for the “foreigners”. His wit, turn of phrase and general good humour - not uncommon among Irish folk - were seized upon.
“I could easily do this myself or with a friend,” said Andrew, a teacher in Carlisle and a seasoned cycler. “But you’d never get that insider feel that you do with an Irish guide.” This was Andrew’s third trip with Irish Cycling Safaris and his first weekend one. He had previously gone on week-long tours in Donegal and West Cork. The British made up the biggest proportion of clients and there had only ever been one Irish person on Andrew’s trips. Donegal, despite the steep climbs, was his favourite: “We had a great guide who knew all the best music venues.”
Our current tour, labelled the “south-eastern medieval tour”, was a gentler one, with a chance to wander round ruins such as the deserted Clonmines site and Tintern Abbey. The main attraction for me was the countryside, the warm sea (we were truly blessed), and the chance to head off on your own, secure in the knowledge that Aidan was keeping discreet tabs on you in regular ‘sweeps’ with the van. The whirr of my tyres seemed strangely loud on the quiet roads. I passed an old man wearing cloth cap and braces and riding a totally rusted bike. Not a hint of its former colour remained. “Are you enjoying yourself?” another old man was keen to know as I cycled past him and his dog.
At lunch time stops and in the evening there was the opportunity to socialise with a disparate and congenial group of people. Their takes on Ireland, as well as my own chance to experience the place as a holiday-maker, gave me a fresh appreciation of my adopted country, enabling me to see beyond the construction work which currently blights Dublin.
It is always heartening, as well, to see an English person’s eyes opening to the charms and idiosyncrasies of a country which first-time visitors still sometimes assume is merely an extension of their own. By the end of the three days several were responding to strangers with a nod or a greeting, staying up later than usual and not minding if they didn’t follow their written route maps to the last detail.
On Sunday morning, from Duncannon fort, we looked down across the long, deserted beach. Wendy, from Chislehurst, was amazed. ‘A place like this would be packed out in England,’ she said. Smugly, I agreed. By late afternoon, after a memorable cycle ride to the Hook lighthouse and back via Fethard-on-Sea, Duncannon beach had turned into a car park, with paddlers having to avoid moving traffic. An overspill from the pub sat on the wall opposite with pints and ghetto-blasters and a dozen pairs of runners hung by their laces from the telegraph wires overhead. At Cullenstown Strand, however, the idyll was untainted and the golden-sanded Dollar Beach rates among the most appealing beaches I have come across anywhere.
Food and drink on the tour were of high quality, though the English and South Africans baulked at the cost. Fish and chips would cost a tenth of the price at home, said one South African. The English blamed the euro.
Monday morning saw us relaxed and suntanned on the Passage East ferry for our last blast. We’d covered between 30 and 40 miles a day and it really hadn’t been that hard, thanks to the fairly easy terrain and the 21-gear touring bikes. This ride, past Woodstown Strand and through Dunmore East, was more what Aidan would call ‘rolling’. I had to get off and push a few times. On the long sweep down to Dower’s Grocery store in Ballymacaw, however, I really couldn’t think of a better way to spend a holiday. Too soon I was back waiting for the ferry. Suddenly there was no more route to follow, no more directions such as ‘turn right at cottage with red tin roof’. As the group split up and e-mail addresses exchanged, there was a palpable sense of loss.