Friday Jul 18 2014

This morning the sun was out and blue skies, we used suncream again:).  Within 15 minutes of our ride the clouds came, the sun disappeared and it started to rain.  On with the rain jackets.  However, we did have the wind at our backs and it was a good tail wind.  We followed the Cooley Peninsula into Dunleer.

We stopped for lunch in Dunleer, quite a pretty town.  We had emailed a warmshowers host in Dunleer, but had not received a response, so we had stayed in Carlingford last night instead of pushing to get to Dunleer.  Amandine had asked for a weeks notice, and we had only given her two days.

It eventually stopped raining after we had eaten, but drizzled on and off until about half an hour outside of Drogheda.  As we cycled down this hill in County Armagh we spotted a large monument, apparently the Pope (JP2) had visited this area and 300,000 people came to see him.

This was his plea.

We arrived in Drogheda, knowing there wasn’t a camp site, but there was a hostel.  There was a small farmers market in Drogheda.  The first stall was selling gorgeous flowers.  We paused at the stall as we pushed our bicycles through the Town towards the Information Centre.  The lady at the stall said to me \”Are you Jacky\”?  I said yes and she introduced herself as Amandine the warmshowers host.  She explained that she had not checked her email, until Thursday night and wanted to come and pick us up and have us stay with her.  Amandine was a really nice person and we wished we could have stayed with her.  They are very busy at this time of year, with the produce and the market but she was willing to have us stay at short notice.

After chatting to Amandine for about half an hour we carried on to the Information Centre.  The ladies at the Information Centre told us where the hostel was and that it was only 10 minutes away.  I teased them about the Irish 10 minutes, we had a good laugh.  I told them if it was farther away I would change my comment in the visitors book. I had written “very helpful”

We got the last room in the hostel, the only room they had left was a private ensuite room.  It was very nice, but expensive 60 EU.

We went back downtown and I popped into the Info Centre I put a smiley face next to my comment – my comment was “very helpful and honest”.

I updated the blog, but couldn\’t post anything as the wi-fi was so slow. Ralf went for a walk around the Town.  The great mound at Milmount was a 12^th century Motte and Bailey Norman Castle.

The Town was a walled city in the 14th century, this is one of the remaining entrances to the Town.

We had a lovely dinner in the hostel and chatted to a Croatian lady.  We talked about Croatia and the fact that it is very segregated.  I asked how Tito had managed to keep the various factions together.  We had an interesting chat about what a charismatic leader he was and how he gave the people what they wanted “food and games”. She made the comparison to the Roman Empire – food and games.