Hanging out in Dublin

DAY 2, Wed. Sept. 4, 2019
Zero km's. Lots of walking


Today was to be all about research and development. Basically get my bearings (I think I lost a few over the years). Do some shopping and sight seeing. I checked out the train station . Eireann Heaston Station is only a few km's through a busy area of town. I asked some workers what I thought were relevant questions. All I got were judgemental looks and dumbass smiles. I was pretty pissed. Great tourism ambassadors.
  I found "The Outdoor Store" where I blew over 100 Euros on rain pants. Also some camping supplies (which I would never use). After a ton of walking, I wanted to find "The Backpacker's Hotel" as I would be staying there near the end of my trip. A quirky old guy pointed me in the right direction. He was the most helpful person I met since arriving in Dublin.
    Later that evening, I was planning my route to the train station over beers and pizza. At 3 km, it should be simple. The next morning prooved not the case....
   
    These last 2 days were stressful. With no data on my phone,  I clearly cannot navigate this town. With nameless streets I dunno, I'm exhausted from walking in circles.
Beer me Highwaycat. Meoww, repeat till zzzzzz.

The hood

Home Base

Light Rail everywhere

Street scene

A building with humanoid life forms milling about

Molson Brewery

Cell reception capsule

Stephen's Green Park. Short walk from Home Base. est. late 1800's

House in the park engulfed by vines. HWC in foreground

Results from shopping. Those are rain pants under fuel canister. I thought the weather was gonna turn nasty. It didn't. $$$$$ Oh well

WEST IRELAND RAMBLE 2019

DAY 1, Tue. Sept. 3, 2019                 

Plan:   North Van. ➔ YVR ➔ Dublin Airport ➔ Leeson Inn (Dublin Ireland)
Stats:  My good buddy Kerry drove me to YVR. 45 min. Check in/waiting 2.5 hours, Flight 8;40 hours, Security/bike build/bags 3 hours. Bike to Leeson Inn- should have been 45 min. Got lost and lost and lost.= 2 F**king hours ( I can smile now, but was almost crying then! ) 
Total Time: 14:25 hours (est.)

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    Time was ticking away and I was stressing out as my flight departure neared. My friend Kerry came by to help out and drive me to the airport. This was huge as he already had plans. Thanks again man!
    Once at the airport, Kerry helped me get my bearings (my brain was in sleep mode)
Moving through the airport, we happened upon another guy on a bike mission. Turned out that he was heading to Ireland also. Anyway, I progressed to my check in line up. There were issues with my bike and payment, which was not a surprise. The Air Canada clerk was less than cheery. 
    Getting settled into my isle seat, I learned that my neighbour was an elderly woman. Turned out that she needed help with things during the flight. I helped her with the TV screen a bit and opening some snack packaging. 
   The flight was fast.  8:40 hrs. When we entered the airport, we were greeted with a labyrinth of directional rope and zig zagging lines to nowhere. This shit show took forever. When I got to the customs officer, I unfortunately had a hard time finding paperwork that he wanted to see. I had a mini panic scenario but got through and found myself a relatively quiet corner of the airport. I happened upon the other bike guy from Vancouver. He was pretty stressed out while getting his bike assembled. 
    Well, I had lots of time, so I slowly put Shirley together and headed out fairly relaxed but but a bit freaked out. The ride to my home base seemed straight forward and not far at around 10 km I think. It turns out that I have no sense of direction at all. Even though I had a detailed route written down, I had no idea where the guest house was. I knew that I was within a couple km's but couldn't find the street. I had issues with my phone, so Google wasn't part of the team. Like an idiot, I asked many people where I could find the street. Of coarse 96 % of the hordes of people were tourists and they had no clue. One guy stopped and looked very annoyed as he pulled out his phone. He pointed east and said "That way, turn right" Turns out I was walking around it for probably 45 minutes.
    The Leeson Inn was a perfect home base. I got settled in with food and beers. Today was an extremely difficult day. I learned quickly that I am a terrible tourist outside of North America. I could finally relax and de-stress even though Highwaycat wanted to get rolling. Evil Cat!

The bike portion... 
  
Bloody simple route and downhill too. Screwed it up anyway. Sheesh. HWC's fault! Ha ha

Boarding pass print out

Sketch. "Pre-Flight Jitters"

The fun part

Sketch of crazy bike guy encounter...

Highwaycat in YVR "Lets just go!"

Dublin Airport. Here we go. The assemble area

Outside Dublin Airport, excited and nervous...

Leaving Dublin Airport

After a confusing mess up at the huge traffic circle, we are on a nice path...

Finally!!

Closing the Circle

DAY 12, Fri. July 27, 2018

Coquihalla Motel  ➔   Castle Bishop
Hope BC.                    Sardis BC.  

Stats:  Cateye - Dist: 64.8 km, Avg. 21k/hr, Max. 54km/hr, Time: 3hrs.
            Polar    -  Cal. 1697, Avg Hr. 116, Time: 3:10. Total time: 4 hrs (pics and breaks)

    Got up at a respectable time of 7:30, went across the street for a giant omelette. Back at the motel, I was able to stall my departure easily by watching the Space Channel. Two great Sci Fi shows, Andromeda and Stargate SG1 (both filmed in Vancouver BC).
    After stalling, I was out by 10am. This was a bit of a sad day as it was my last one on the road and I  would soon be back to the daily grind.  I grabbed Water St. to Hwy 1 across the Fraser River, then West on the #7. (familiar territory). This road is quiet flat and dials in a huge shoulder. After about an hour, I caught up to what turned out to be a unicyclist. At a distance he appeared as a strange silhouette with an odd visual signature.  I passed him wide as to not startle him and I offered some positive feedback. He replied "Wanna race?" Ha ha. I don't know what his destination was, but he had about another 30 km of nothingness ahead of him after the 20 or so he just rode. Who knows, he may be riding back from Thunder Bay Ont. for all I know. 
    Anyway, we made it back to my sister's place to complete the cascade loop 2018.

No more Hope

Let's try 7 West

We came upon a unicyclist. This is a long stretch of Hwy. Impressive

Random chair

We were thinking of taking this to Sasquatch Prov. Park but we are chickens

Agassiz Rosedale bridge links #7 with Hwy 1. I had 2 inches of tire space. After about 15 minutes watching traffic and swearing to myself,  I decided to make the crossing. I knew that it was gonna be a white knuckle event. Once across this 1.9 km 1956 piece of shit bridge I saw several semis cross in both directions. Some times you just gotta throw the dice. (apparently this bridge was widened). Must be the worst bridge for cycling in the lower mainland.

Yale Road. Crazy huge shoulder for a bit

No further pics as things got confusing near Chilliwack. It's just as well.
The End.

There's always Hope...

DAY 11, Thurs. July 26 2018

Mule Deer Campground ➔ Coquihalla Motel
Manning Park                      Hope BC.

Stats:  Cat Eye-Dist: 80km, 20.7k/hr Avg, Max 61k/hr Time: 2:25 (pedalling), 4hr total
                 Polar -   Cal. 1229, Hr. 116 bpm, 

Easy ride but Hwy. 3 has some sketchy sections on the long downhill. Was stressful on the turns which pissed me off. Highwycat was fine with it.

Upon arrive in the fine town of Hope BC. (Rambo First Blood, 1982) I found myself scanning potential hideouts. I settled on the wonderfully crappy Coquihalla Motel. $85.00+tax.
I did some riding around town taking pics. This is a nicer place than I thought. Got beers and the "Best Damn Pizza" at Hope Pizza Place. Med. Italian $26.00+ Hey, I'm holiday ya know!

Morning selfie. Leaving Mule Deer

Breakfast, Manning Cafe

Abnormally awesome blacktop (temporary)

The top

Going down?

"We won't be needing brakes"

Annoying a deer (Motorhead's 1st single. Was never released)

Hope slide (Largest landslide in Canada as of 2019) It happened in 1965

Helpful information sign. Millions of tons and only 4 deaths

Green on brown isn't the most readable colour combo

Home base

Hwy Cat and Gandalf

Highwaycat gets a massage

Expensive but good. Creepy logo right?

Rest Day

Day 10, Wed. July 25, 2018

Was super nice to get up late and mill about, which included setting up a bear bag. I probably didn't need it, but was fun to do so anyway. Took a little ride out to the Manning Park Resort. On the way, I visited "Hampton Campground" Looks like they invested a bunch of money on it as it had been expanded substantially. There are over a hundred sites and a beautiful new washroom facility. I saw only a few people there as the water was shut off.  They also upgraded the area around the resort. Theres a bunch of new cabins set up almost like a separate neighbourhood. Beautiful, but expensive.
    Back at the site an older guy had moved in across from me. I spotted him checking out my site from a distance, he was obviously curious. Of coarse he came over to ask me questions. I told him about some of my bike trips including my cross Canada one. He said that he always wanted to do that. I told him that it's never too late.

Waiting for coffee like the sands of time through the hourglass...

The finest breakfast plating/cutlery.

Strange poser sightseeing ride

New facility at the Hampton campsite 15 km up the road 

Big upgrade to this site. It's nice but I kinda liked the less popular small no frills site that it was. However, more sites = more opportunity during peak season, I guess.

Posing by the Similkameen River, notice the "dent" in my bicep. Broken but not ...

Cat rocks

UFO

Trying out my power pack. Thanks TBaal !

Making do with rock, Im Irish, OK ?!