Boulogne-sur-Mer, France to Cowes, UK

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Cowes, UK to Zoersel, Belgium

Please note; Due to my usual level of efficiency, I am still putting together my Norway trip photos and ramblings. Although there's an entry for each day here, all there is to see is Google maps of where I went, so probably not that interesting.

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Dublin to back home... eventually

Monday 31st March - the last day of the leave year, so the last day I wanted to take off work for now. Another rather long slog - up at 6am to get down to the Rosslare - Fishguard ferry (it leaves at 9am, but they start loading an hour before).

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Then back across Wales then down towards home. I should have been home by late afternoon... but my shoulders and wrists were in agony and I was tired and bored... so I decided to avoid the motorway and take a more interesting route home. Not wise when you're tired!

I stopped for petrol in Bath and my *£$((*&@%ing TomTom sent me up some stupid back road system to get out again. I dropped my bike going round a tiny residential corner avoiding the traffic, and broke off the clutch lever. Fortunately a friendly native told me where I could find a Honda garage in Bath; unfortunately they didn't have a spare VFR clutch lever, so I had to ride back up to Bristol using the stump of the lever to get a replacement from Fowlers. I've used them before, they have a huge warehouse of brand spares for everything, but at a price.

Then back down to Bath, only to find that the A36 is completely closed for months for major roadworks, so I have to take some godforsaken reroute. I eventually got home for about 10pm and dropped straight into bed! Not a particularly exciting route home and rather a dull end to my little Irish trip, but whining about it makes me feel better :-)

Isle of Wight to Kilkenny

I went to Ireland for a few days to use up some leave before the end of the financial year. It was a useful test of biking kit as I plan some more trips soon. These posts are tests of various ways of recording my traveling. I'm not one for lots of words and am well aware that most of my acquaintances have poor attention spans, so I'm concentrating on maps and photos if anything.

Anyway. Thursday: Home to Kilkenny (E), via the Cowes (A) to Southampton (B) ferry, a boring motorway drive, across South Wales and via the Fishguard (C) to Rosslare (D) Stena Lines ferry.

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Once in Ireland I stayed in the nearest Youth Hostel to Rosslare, Foulksrath Castle. Quite funky in that it's in a castle, apparently the oldest hostel in Ireland, but pretty basic (especially the loos and showers, a makeshift Heath Robinson affair in portacabins) and not particularly welcoming (although to be fair it's out of season and I was the only visitor apart from a group of despondent Germans who had their own room).

Disappointingly I only learnt afterwards that it's haunted - seeing as I was alone in the top room and the wind was howling all night, it would have been creepy if I knew... but if any ghosts were trying to hassle me, I slept through.