The road to Rouen and reaching Dublin

The road to Rouen turned out to be grand actually. It was the road from Rouen that was to prove, well, ruinous.

Following the waterways West had slowly changed from being a calm and useful navigational aid along the Bourgogne canal to being a twisting labyrinthian pain in the saddle once the Seine had passed through Paris; blocked off roads, massive private estates, fenced off industrial zones (and no crystals to be seen)  bridge-less backwaters and stagnant swamps meant progress was slow.

Still onwards and upwards, my route took me, er, onwards and upwards (and downwards)...

Among the futuristic glass and steel awesomeness of 'La defence' in Paris..

Through the mines of Moria..

Along Mario Kart's Rainbow road...

Past Pennywise's murder cave...

and down the hill of awesomeness in a rare
& happy 'down' moment
(A 12% grade for over a kilometre made it feel
like the bike was re-entering Earth's atmosphere)

The hill of awesomeness generated an altitude debt that would have to be paid later but was still worth it. I thought the bike was going to shake apart with the speed!

The final 400 Km of France proved to be by far the most challenging. The weather turned nasty so for about 5 days I was travelling through almost constant rain and into a strong headwind. Avoiding the motorways necessitated some torturous zig-zag navigation and gnarly (underused word, that) hills.

At one point Google maps sent me down a promising path along the Seine estuary... that turned out to be 6km of bike-bashing rocks forcing me to dismount... and walk my steed through pools of chalky mud. The gears, brakes and wheels were soon buried under accreted gunk, all while under driving rain and an evil wind. There was much swearing.

Eventually I re-emerged onto an industrial estate and some passing HGV drivers were kind enough to help me clean the goo off by splashing me with massive puddles and buffeting me with turbulence to help shift the remainder. Which was great cause then I could go over this git...

Image grabbed from the internet. Hence why it's all sunny and pleasant.

While the lads monitoring the cameras in the French weather control machine were saying "Wait for it, wait for it; let him reach the halfway point before we turn on the horizontal hailstones!"

One unexpected bonus was
things were so wet that some of the bloodsuckers
trying to feed on me actually drowned. Every cloud...

The 'dirt line': that isn't a tan...

Further on down the trail though, I would pass the memorials for soldiers killed during the D-day landings so that kind of cut off my moaning with a healthy dose of perspective.

One last set of hills, a messy puncture and some more French Fawlty Towers hotels later I reached Cherbourg. 18 hours of sleepless (but calm) sailing after that I was in Ireland.

Yar! Discomfort ahoy! My patch of floor was there to the left.

Following the coast roads from Rosslare brought me as far as Gorey where I spent the night. The next morning, last Sunday) came the final push to Dublin which was a windless, relatively flat doddle in glorious sunshine (well, a lack of rain anyway) to see these beauties...

Seen from a slightly skewed 'southside'
angle but then that couldn't be helped..

I arrived home to a surprise shindig arranged by my fantastic sister and my filial doppleganger Mick, at which many wonderful people were in attendance. Ciaran had made the supreme cake to end all cakes (Thanks Ciaran; the Kenny hearth will always be warm for you and yours!). There was some pun-tastic (and slightly risqué) artwork provided by the logan contingent and plenty of great company.

There's no photo as everyone was too busy having a laugh to be taking photos of everyone else having a laugh, which I wouldn't have any other way. 

It was kind of like this but with less gangsters and more cake.

Since getting home I've spent the last week sleeping, slobbing around the place and binge watching "game of thrones".

I have also been eating ALL OF THE FOOD that I can get my hands on as my body still thinks it's burning an extra 3000 calories a day.

Thank you very much everyone for your support, both encouragement and donations.

All in, to date, you kind people donated 1635 of your hard earned yo-yos which I will send on to a combination of Cystic Fibrosis Ireland, the UK cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Peter McVerry trust.

I'll let the money "rest in my account" for another week so that any last minute welcome donations can be added to the total before I have my legal team get to work on the transfer.

Thanks a million again lads; yee are brilliant!

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear

I feel the need to briefly thank my mentor of all things outdoors.

To protect his anonymity I will refer to him only as the "camping guru" and have photoshopped his face with Keith Flint's (Because amongst the camping guru's many skills is an ability to kindle a fire almost anywhere).

Here the camping guru is showing me how to safely ignore "don't camp on the gun-range" signs.

Apart from showing me why it was a bad idea to hike along a bare hilltop during a thunderstorm (We reckon it's safer to hide under solitary trees or erect an umbrella) he showed me lots of things for being less uncomfortable while hiking around the place or camping, for which I have a genuine appreciation.

He's kind of like a tall Yoda.

(Thanks to Derek for the photoshop skills)

Early weight saving gear trials involved testing a 'bivvy bag' as opposed to a weighty tent. A bivvy bag is essentially a waterproof cover for a sleeping bag that sometimes comes with a pole to keep the material away from your face and/or a zippable hood for dry, if claustrophobic, protection against inclement weather. In theory they're made from an advanced breathable material so your breath doesn't fog up the inside.

Lies, all lies abut how he lies.

In practice mine was more like a kind of portable iron maiden/sauna. I tested it in the mountains on what started as a scorching day... shortly after dusk the weather closed in and it started lashing. I smugly snuggled into my space age rain-armour thinking 'take that, Nature!'.

2 hours later with the rain hammering the sides and with the buzzing of bloodsuckers kept a steady 1.5 inches from my face by netting, sleep proved...elusive.

Still later I heard a heavy trampling and snuffling in the darkness outside getting nearer; it sounded like Shardik was outside wrecking the joint. I put on my head-torch and went to investigate.

Somewhere in the hills of North Switzerland a young deer still lives in terror of the strange, gangling, soaked and swearing mess that was disgorged that night from the grim man-cocoon amidst steam, light and fear.

I decided to go with the tent in the end.

An ode to invertebrates.

An ode to invertebrates...

"ARGHGETOFFOFMEYOULITTLEBAS.."

The end.

If it flies, crawls, oozes, bites or stings, I've probably encountered it trying to slink into my ears, nose or mouth at some point over the last 5 weeks.

Whenever you see some happy ponies, frolicking about in a  field you'll get horseflies..

Whenever you run into deer or boars, you're entering Tick country

They get very heavy deer around these parts..

And of course you'll have a papparizi style cloud of winged followers keen for the taste of your flesh whenever you're near a mountain, or a river, or a wood, or farms....

So it's evening time, you've made camp in a secluded spot, eaten a quick meal before the mozzies come out in force, washed and headed to bed. You're now warmly ensconced in a sleeping bag listening smugly as the crowd of bloodsuckers futilely mill around outside the netting.

You turn out the light, and start to doze off...

Sometime later you sleepily adjust the covers as you start to peacefully drift away. Then your hand encounters something slimy. Slimy, cold and unexpected...

I shall name thee "Sir Squishy" and you will want for nothing.

A few days after this I switched from camping to comfy "walls and roof" sleeping arrangements.