Friday June 20th - From Oughterard to Westport

The weather first thing was superb, really sunny and warm even at 9.30 in the morning, so much so that I went for short sleeves for the first time in the whole trip. We had the usual group photos taken and then made our way to the shop in town to stock up on fruit, drinks and snickers bars. The Solway group had gone on ahead and myself, Lee, Robert R, Pete and John set off after them along a reasonably flat road west towards the Maam valley. The scenery was superb especially in the sun and the wind had dropped since yesterday.
We caught the Solway boys and then turned northwards and made our way up the steady hill through the Maam valley which was just beautiful - mountains in the distance and small loughs all around. Lee and John had gone on ahead by now leaving myself, Pete and Robert behind. We reached the summit about 350 feet up and then there was a really good, sweeping descent down to the village of Maum where the two boy racers were drinking tea outside a bar and waiting for us. We joined them for a drink and waited a while to see if the rest of the group would come along. They didn't and we were to find out why not a little later.
The sunny weather and the stunning scenery continued as we rode east with Lough Corrib on our right until we reached a village called Cornamona at which point Pete suggested leaving the designated route and following the road east along the border of the lough. Robert R and I liked the idea but John and Lee stuck to the plan and turned left going north between the mountains. The plan was to meet up again about 7 miles on in the village of Cloghbrack but we managed to get lost a bit and my legs were feeling very heavy. It may have been the 70 miles on the previous day or the fact that we had been riding into the wind for a while but by the time we saw John and Lee's bikes parked outside a cafe in a village called Finny I was really ready for a rest.
Pete phoned Bob from the other group to let him know that our route was easier and heard the news that Steve's rear wheel rim had split - not something I had ever heard of before and not something you can really plan for or do anything about. He had managed to bodge a repair and ended up riding 20 miles with Rob from Torbay to a town called Ballinrobe where he got it fixed.
Meanwhile we had reached Finny which was a tiny little place - all it had was a shop, a cafe and a garage but on the outskirts of the village there was an enormous modern-looking chapel. There were hardly any houses around so I would be amazed if that chapel was ever more than one tenth full.
We joined the others for lunch in the cafe and it was then that I realised the battery on my gps was nearly dead. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that I forgot to put it on charge overnight. Doh ! I turned it off at this point as it has a habit of throwing a wobbly when low on power.
As we left the village we immediately turned right heading up a steep hill north-eastwards. This was the only serious climb of the day but at least now the wind was behind us. From the top of the hill we had superb views across Lough Mask on our right. This road stayed fairly level but as we rode we gradually changed direction around towards the west and back into the wind which appeared to have picked up even more than earlier. Robert went on ahead at one point and John and Lee chased after him leaving Pete and I back a bit. I was really tired now and was very glad to have Pete to hide behind. The last ten miles into Westport were no fun - it was a busy road with no views and it seemed never-ending. I turned the gps back on at the end and had enough power to record the last few miles.
Eventually we reached the town which looked ok but all I wanted to do was get to the B&B and put my feet up. We arrived about 5.30 and arranged to meet again at 7pm to get dinner which turned out to be cod and chips in a nearby pub. In all we did 62 miles today and it was by far the best weather and the best scenery so far. Pete had heard the forecast for the next few days and we all wished he hadn't.

The map of Day 6 with the missing bit sketched in blue.