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Aching Back At seven in the morning the tent felt unbearably hot. We packed up and continued our detour side road. It looped and reconnected with our road from last night. Our Michelin map labeled this stretch scenic, and it was, so it wasn't a great hardship to do twice. We arrived in Dungarvan before most people were out of bed. The local L&N grocery store supplied us with doughnuts. Food cost about twice as much as in Canada. The workers made about the same as we did, so I didn't know how they survived. We took up residence in the park, overlooking the small boats in the harbor. The direct sun was uncomfortably hot. We left to find the post office. At first we couldn't locate it because we were looking for Britain's red building instead of Ireland's green. It cost £4 for surface mail and £11 (over $25) for air. I was only half-joking when I told the clerk I would have to work part-time to pay for postage. I affixed the amount for surface mail and shoved the packet through the regular mail slot. Maybe no one would notice the missing £7 postage and it would fly First Class. Rain began. First just sporadic gobs, and then as we rode out of town, it spattered in earnest. We swooped into a covered alleyway smelling of urine and waited until the rain nearly stopped before venturing out again, just in time for it to drivel harder. We ducked under an overhang of a local church housing facility and glumly wondered if it would be like this all day. Deciding it probably would be; we headed out into a strong headwind. We opted to stay on inland route N25, rather than the coastal route, because a strong wind inland probably meant a gale force wind on the bare coast. Sharon's back was aching from all the hill climbing we had done. We reasoned because N25 was the main route, it would be flatter, but within two kilometers a long steep climb rose before us Sharon labored to the top in tears. She attributed her sore back to too many steep hills, combined with too high of gears, causing her to pull up on her handlebars to exert more leverage to climb. A short distance later we called it an early day and wandered into a forest. At least this time the forest we picked allowed us to navigate our loaded bikes around the barricade. We followed a gravel road until the trees ran out at the edge of two farm fields. We wanted the woods to shelter us from the wind. Sharon went off to investigate while I held the bikes. The place Sharon found wasn't exactly accessible. I balked at having to lug my bike over a batch of rutty bumps and scrape through a multitude of brambles. Nearby, I located an overgrown old road and we set up under the evergreens right on the path. A bird in the bush clicked its song like a toy with low batteries. A small crik trickled by on the other side of a chicken wire fence. Sharon went to fetch water and then filtered it to make tea and unleavened pancakes spread with delicious raspberry jam. |
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