The Totally Unexpected Day

Some days things don’t go as expected. Today was one of those days.

I woke up around 6:30 a.m. to the sound of rain drumming down against my window. It was not quite a hard rain, but definitely more than a drizzle. Plus, it was windy.

I know it is Ireland and it’s green and pretty because of the rain, but when doing a cycling trip, rain and wind really aren’t on the agenda.

I promptly went back to sleep deciding the 10 km run I was going to do before my ride could wait until tomorrow.

At 8:30 a.m. when I woke up again, it was still raining – but I was optimistic. I put on my cycling pants and cycling jacket just in case and headed over to Bantry in search of Nigel’s Bike Shop.

It turns out cycling was not to be my destiny this morning. Nigel wasn’t there. Apparently, he’s only open on Mondays in the summer and while this is considered the last weekend of summer in North America, in the UK, that was last weekend.

So no Nigel. He was home sleeping while I was standing outside his shop in my padded pants regretting the pot of tea I drank at breakfast because now I had to pee – and it was still raining which didn’t really help.

Amazing colors on the countryside

Thankfully, Ireland has a lot of road signs so coming up with a Plan B isn't hard.

I’m talking more signs than normal places. On any street corner, you’ll see a post with arrows pointing in every direction tempting you with new destinations. And a new destination was my destiny for today. Sheep’s Head Peninsula to be exact.

The host at Seaview House where I was staying mentioned it the night before and said it was amazing.

I drove up to the first sign and there it was -- the icon of two sheep butting heads and an arrow pointing to the right.

Perfect, I was back in business. Plan B was in action.

Sheep’s Head Peninsula is gorgeous and I recommend it if you ever are in Ireland. It is 120 km of cliffs, hills and meadows all along the coast with trails you can walk/cycle and narrow roads you can drive. Believe me, you really can't have a bad day in Ireland when everything around you is so beautiful and peaceful.

And of course, there are sheep.

There are lots and lots of sheep. I took photos to prove it. I must have at least 30 pictures of sheep. I couldn’t resist their little faces and plump Irish sheep butts. So cute. Plus, you can hear them baaa-ing in the distance calling out to you.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO JAMESON DISTILLERY

I spent most of the day driving around the peninsula stopping only to pee (damn that tea) and to purchase a homemade scone from some little shop in the middle of nowhere called Bernie's Cupan Tae. But it was only 3 p.m. and I still had lots of time before the sun set.

I plugged in my GPS with its freshly loaded Ireland maps and checked out nearby landmarks. Jameson Distillery was option three – and only 40 k.m. away. Yay! 

After tackling the narrow single lane roads of Sheep’s Head, I was feeling pretty good about my Irish driving and had figured out the whole passing thing. Whenever, a vehicle bigger than me (like a bus or truck) approached in the opposite direction, I would pull over into the brush (they don’t have shoulders here) and let them pass. I had gotten it down to an art form.

Or so I thought.

Halfway to Jameson, a big tour bus headed toward me. There was no way both of us could share the road so I pulled over into the brush to let him pass. He swooshed by and gave me the double-light flicker thank-you and off I went. Unfortunately, I had no idea there was a knee-high post in the brush with me. It clipped the side of the bumper with a “thunk”.

I drove on thinking it was nothing – until I heard the distinct sound of scraping of metal against rubber.

Poop. The bumper was rubbing the tire. I must have clipped it harder than I thought.

I pulled over and checked. Yup. It was bad. Not only did I succeed in destroying the bumper, but I scraped the side of the car and the passenger door didn’t want to open. Poop. Poop. Poop. I know I had paid for some insurance on the car, but also remember the clerk telling me the deducible was €1,200 (euros).

This vacation suddenly got expensive, but while I was a little worried if I had enough room on my credit card to handle €1,200 (which I learned was close to $2,000 USD), I was more worried about getting back to Seaview House Hotel before dark.

I was 49 km from Cork where I rented the car and just over 30 km from my hotel in the other direction.  It was raining and I was sitting in a vehicle that was un-drivable. Thank goodness I paid all that extra money to get a special cell phone that worked in Ireland just for emergencies like this. All I had to do was call Avis Car Rental and they could come get me and bring me a new car.

I got out the phone – and no service. Lovely.

SENDING OUT AN S.O.S TO MY GUARDIAN ANGELS

So onto Plan C. I plug in my GPS to find the nearest town with a gas station. It was 3 km away. Okay. I could do this. I’ll drive really slow (on the 100 km highway – sorry, Irish people who were behind me) and if the tire punctured, I could always walk the rest of the way to the station.

The gas station girl didn’t have a working phone, but she sent me to the village's grain processing place - yes, I really was in the middle of nowhere. This town was really only a street that provided a pub, gas station and convenience store for the local farmers. 

But my luck was about the change. The guy at the grain processing place not only had a phone, but after looking at the damage on my car, called up his other friend saying I had “had a bit of a tip” and needed some assistance.

His friend wasn’t able to save the bumper so I’ll still had to pay the €1,200 deductible when I returned the car, but he was able to pry it off the wheel with a crowbar so I could drive without the scraping sound. He also was able to fix it so the passenger door opened – Yay!!

I consider him and his friend my guardian angels of the day. Thank goodness for Irish hospitality.

When I got back to the hotel, I soon learned that I wasn't the first person to have a "tip" on the narrow roads. One Irish gent told me he lost a mirror and another woman said she had a door ripped off.  Every person had a "tip" story to share. I was officially Irish.