Day Twelve

I intended to cycle to Galway today but did not quite make. At Lisdoonvarna there was a matchmakers festival - it lasts for all of September and originated as a wayfor farmers to find a wife but now is a great excuse for fortune telling, music, drinking and more drinking. I met a group of cyclists there who were on a three day cycling trip all of the group were linked to a diabetics organisation or were diabetics themselves. They invited me to join them for lunch and I ended up spending the whole day with them and staying at the same hotel in Ballyvaughan which is a lively little port on the south side of Galway Bay. It was a good lunch in a pub at Lisdoonvarna, then we cycled around a headland with fantastic Limestone cliffs and ledges and stopped for a swim in the cold Atlantic rollers. The Highland Hotel did a great seafood platter followed by beef stew in Guiness.

Evin is a teacher in a Moslem school in Dublin and Connor is a Doctor and all the others were interesting and friendly folk and we talked of many things, listened to some good live music, which is still going on down below, and downed a few Guinnesses.

I don't think I will get going very early in the morning but if I get as far as Galway that will be OK. I was going to have a rest day there but I might just push on to the Connemara Hills.

60km today