Day Seventeen

More wonderful weather today. When I set off from Aughis this morning the surf was creaming in with the froth from the tops of the waves being blown away by the off-shore wind. The morning was altogether more chirpy than yesterday's sad Hungarian Oliver Hardy. There were two quiet and charming Americans who were raving about the wonders of Ireland and the Irish. There was also an interesting guy who worked on the North Sea oil rigs and with his two weeks off every month (soon to be 4 weeks in every 6 thanks to the EEC) came to Ireland to go surfing. He said that the surf at Easky, where I stopped briefly yesterday, was some of the best in Europe. As I was leaving, your B&B lady said she had heard on the news that a whale had stranded not far away. It was a little out of my way but only about 8 extra kms. It was a sperm whale. So I went In search of the white whale. Well, blackish actually. I had imagined it to be on the beach winking through big tearful eyes at the kids lick
ing Ice cones around it but after a bit of a search I found it, in a big sheltered bay in an estuary about 500 metres out. There were about three boats fixing ropes to it to try and pull it out into deeper water where a big ship was waiting to take it out to sea. It was a long way off but must have been huge because it dwarfed the small boats. I watched it for a while then cycled to Sligo.

Sligo is much like a lot of other towns in Ireland full of construction work. But the centre by the river was lively with buskers and pavement cafes. After sitting around listening to a Stephen Grepelli(sp) sound alike I set off towards Bundoran. Yesterday's long ride caught up with me in the afternoon and I was feeling very tired. There was a campsite on the map but when I got there it had been converted to a caravan park. The friendly owner, who said Poole in Dorset is one of the nicest places he had been to, offered to let me camp there but said there were no showers. So I decided to go the extra 10km to Bandoran. If you were sitting on a comfortable car seat rather than a torturous bicycle saddle, and were not a surfer, you would give this place a miss. It's a faded seaside resort, empty amusement arcades with sad looking proprietors standing outside waiting for the 50s to return, a closed tourist office and three campsites that have also been converted to caravan parks.
I went to the hostel where I was told it was full of school children -ugghhh!- but she could let me have a holiday cottage for 25 Euros - which is great - all to myself to cook, wash, tumble dry, set off the smoke alarms with my garlic bread and drink guinness in the bath.

90 kms today - and a whale.