Saturday June 14th - From Torquay to BarleyCove Bay

The plan was for the five Torbay boys namely myself, Pete, Lee, Rob and John to fly from Exeter to Dublin where we would meet the other nine cyclists and then we would all go by bike-bus to the start at Mizen Head. This was to be the first time I had taken my bike on a plane and it wasn't easy. Flybe insist that bikes are taken apart and packed into suitable bags or boxes and I spent most of the previous day doing this. By the time it was all packed the bag weighed a ton and when John came to pick me up at 8am I nearly pulled a muscle lifting it into his van.
We got to the airport, met the other three and each paid our £34 bike-handling fee at which point Flybe said that the bikes would be treated as 'standby cargo' meaning that they would only be taken if there was sufficient room in the hold. We were told it 'would probably be ok'. Hmm..that's re-assuring. It was only as we boarded the plane that we were told that the bikes were definitely on board.
The flight only lasted an hour and after we had collected the bikes we met the bus-driver Sonia. I'm not sure if she was Dutch or German and I wasn't going to ask in case I insulted her by getting it wrong. The other nine cyclists were arriving in Dublin by ferry so we put the bikes into a transit driven by Sonia's friend and we went in a 14 seater mini-bus to the ferryport. We were a bit early so we decided to get something to eat in the cafe there. Lee went for a Egg-Mayo and Listeria sandwich while I had a ham-salad with salmonella. It's always a bit worrying when the 'sell-by' date has been tipp-ex'd.
Anyway, the other nine arrived, we said our hellos and I did my best to remember the names. There was Steve H, the trip organiser, Maurice, Sue, John, Tracey and Brian from Solway, Dave from London and Bob and Robert from Manchester. We squeezed into the mini-bus and set off for Mizen Head. Sonia took a wrong turn at one point and we ended up heading north, she only realised her mistake after going through a toll-gate and then had to turn around and pay again to come back through it. It didn't cost us much time and soon we were off down the M7 towards Cork. There were a couple of short showers but on the whole the weather wasn't bad. We spotted a few large mountains on the horizon about half-way down, hopefully it will be like Scotland and we can ride between them (and not like Cornwall where you have to ride over them).
Once the motorways ended we found ourselves on some winding country roads and it was slow-going. By 7pm we were all starving and Pete suggested stopping at a pub he knew in Cork. The food was good, there was plenty of Guinness and, best of all, the football was on the tv. After a stop of about an hour we were off again. As we neared our destination there was a really nice, golden sunset so we were hopeful of some good weather the next day.
Eventually, after what seemed an eternity we arrived at the Barleycove House Hotel, a few miles from the Mizen Head start point. Myself, Lee and Rob were given a 3-bedroom apartment to share and it was very nice inside. Then all we had to do was re-build our bikes which took us until about 12.30am. It had been a long day but we were there in one piece and ready for an 8am start the next morning.