The Greenway Photo Album

This past weekend, Drew, Tracy and I headed over to the west coast to the small town of Westport in County Mayo.  Tracy had come across/heard about the Great Western Greenway, a 42 kilometer biking and walking path along the coast and through the country side, and asked if we wanted to go and bike it with her.  ABSOLUTELY!  Drew and I love biking, running, mountain climbing, camping, and anything else extreme!  Oh wait, no we don't.  I'm not sure what made us say yes, but we decided (a) we like Tracy, (b) we had nothing else to do, (c) it was supposed to be beautiful, and (d) it'll be an adventure!  Why not?

We headed over to Westport on the train early Saturday morning, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, changed, and went and got our bikes.

The Greenway is divided into three parts, and do to the whole thing you either have to start in Westport and then hop on a "shuttle" back, or you can take a tiny, rickety, old van crowded with people, get shoved in the very back, and take the most frightening ride of your life up to Achill and try not to throw up in the process, and then ride your bike back to Westport.  We went with the latter option.

(During our death-defying ride, the thought literally crossed my mind, "If I die here, will anyone know?  Will my parents know that I'm in Westport this weekend?  Will anyone have any idea WHERE I AM!?"  I need to be better about letting peeps know.  Like the US Embassy.)

It was 13K between Achill and Mulranney, where we stopped for lunch, 18K between Mulranney and Newport, and 11K from Newport to Westport.  The last leg was the absolute hardest leg and our hands, butts, backs, and limbs were so sore already we didn't know if we could make it - and wondered why the hell we ever agreed to this "adventure" in the first place.  Every time we'd break and I'd sit back down I'd experience excruciating pain - I've never given birth, but riding a bike for 42K leads me to believe that I now know what the aftermath feels like.  But like the Ring of Kerry, it's almost hard to complain about the physical discomfort when you're surrounded by the absolutely breathtaking countryside.  Here is a photo album of our trip!

Gettin' ready to head out.

They strongly suggested we wear these prison-like vests because parts of the trail were on the actual road/highway.  We needed to stand out so cars wouldn't hit us.  Fine by me!

Enchanted forest.

This was generally the order of our trip: Drew leading the pack....

Tracy in the middle (taking the picture), and me trailing far behind.  Ah well.  Can't win 'em all.

Heading into Westport, we passed this person's backyard.  Isn't it gorgeous?

TP and I having a pre-dinner drink.

My dinner: mushroom risotto!  Yummm.

Our cute hotel!  They may or may not have messed up our reservation and I may or may not have slept on a rollaway bed across the room from Drew, but we got a bottle of wine out of it and a free breakfast.  Woohoo!

The cute town!

Us in front of the canals on the way to the train station.

**Several of these photos are courtesy of Tracy, and you can check out her blog post about our trip here.**

Despite the ongoing butt pain, the sense of accomplishment was something I wouldn't trade for the world!  We did it!  It was a lovely trip with breathtaking views of coast, fields, forests, mountains, animals, greenery, nice people, and lots of laughs.  We're glad we went out of our comfort zone (literally) and made dreams come true.  Though it's Thursday and my butt still hurts.  Ah well!