Carl if you pass Caharciveen in Kerry in June email me as might be there and we'll go for a pint, possibly place for you to sleep too. Cheers! Ross

Cool, will let you know.

I've been considering riding Gap of Dunloe instead of following the coast around to Caharciveen but we'll see.

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Gap of Dunloe is best approached from the south otherwise the signage indicates no way out. Very touristy at the northern end with pony & trap rides from Kate's Cottage area. Picturesque.

Right, I'm leaving at the end of next week.

I'm probably not going to ride the whole 2,500 miles of the Wild Atlantic Way as I've got people to visit, and other things to do, but will still cover a great portion of it.

I imagine that I'll ride more of the south of it than the north.

Starting from Cork, what are the key highlights? Looking for cliffs, abandoned places, and dramatic scenery.

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Interesting place, Ireland, but kind of strange.

I recall seeing one sign that read In the past 5 years, 116 people have been killed on this stretch of road", and thinking "Well, why don't you fix up the friggin' road, then, instead of putting up a sign?"

They also tend to throw down pea gravel on top of hot tar on roads, even on curves in the roads. My motorcycle has ABS and a traction control system, the instrument panel looked like Las Vegas at night with the warning lights for activation of these systems frequently flashing on and off.

The highways department doesn't spend much time trimming the vegetation at the side of the roadways... hedges often encroach onto the road, making it very narrow. Maybe that's to bounce the motorcycles back onto the road after they hit the pea gravel in the corners.

People in the northeast corner of the island appear to be very patriotic, everyone has a flag of some kind hanging off the front of their building. But the flags are all different. Maybe they just like bright colours.

I got lost in a big city in the north, and stopped into a pub on the main street (Shankhill Road) to ask for directions. Someone asked me "What foot do you kick with?" I told them that the Honda PanEuropean I was riding had electric start, and no kickstarter, and they all laughed. I guess they don't have many modern motorcycles there... I didn't see very many. Lots of pretty tall fences, though.

Nice island, but like I said, kind of strange.

Michael

Michael, that's a rather naiive description indeed. It has humour and total inaccuracy in equal measure!

plan is to arrive Dublin and do clockwise journey, to the South then North - have done a good part of Wild Atlantic Way a few years ago in a motorhome, but will now be on Motorcycle.
Travelling round to Larne - ferry to Scotland - then north across to East coast and then plan route back to North Wales
Thats the plan anyway
Looking forward to it

The Road Safety Authority saying the loose road chippings are someone else's problem while at the same time running safety campaigns regarding level crossings is pretty accurate.