We woke to an overcast day but no rain in the forecast!! Part of our daily routine will be to move our luggage etc. a central point in the hotel for Tony to load into the van. Here is only part of the load for the 26 of us!!!

After breakfast we loaded into a motorcoach for a 2 hour ride tour starting point, the southern most point of Ireland Mizin Head. John had transported our bikes earlier . . .

. . . and they were there ready for us when we arrived. We had to put on our pedals, gps, water bottles etc. and soon we were ready to go. It was misty and windy at Mizin . . .

. . . but what a view. This point is the last thing piece of land Irish would see when they left Ireland by ship for the United States.

. . . my official start point!!!

Tom, our tour leader ended up having three flats before he even left the bike corral area. Had some bad ‘imported tubes’ evidently. Here his ‘pit crew’ jumped into action to install a TREK Bontrager tube that worked . . . at least for today!!!

It was getting more cold, raining and windy at Mizenhead and by the time we took our ‘Start’ photo several riders had already started riding to warm up.

. . . as we pedaled away this was the first thing I saw . . . what, am I back in Wisconsin!!!

We left from a high point at Mizin . . .

. . . and descended to this park area with a beach and dune area.

. . . and a long board walk out to the ‘outer banks’.

Oh, Ireland has shrines out in their ag fields too, just like those we saw in Italy last week . . . some of these were quite elaborate.

Another Kodak minute . . . tides out!!!

There is some new construction in the area and the Irish have a nice design feature of covering the entrances to their homes with these structures making sort of a covered entry, mud room combination. Keeps out the cold!!

I’ve got to get some Polish coal . . .while it lasts!!!!

The town I stopped in for lunch along the way had a Croc store, should have brought mine. They had a display Paul Bunyan Croc hanging on the door that must have been two feet long

Our bus driver Liam told us that after the British left the their influence of railroad bridges . . .

. . . and road bridges remained.

We traversed the main road on several sides today, back and forth, on narrow one lane roads through ag areas where you could buy . . . fresh eggs . . .

. . .further down the road 3 euro bags of potatoes . . .

. . .and veggies. Too bad we are not on a self-contained ride, whomever would have been cooking tonight could have bought nearly all their ingredients items right out on the road!!

Got my eyes open for Hanzo . . . he is AWOL. Of course it might be hard spotting him since he doesn’t like people or vehicles!!!

. . . oh there is some reforestation going on in Ireland. Here is a plantation planted by Green Belt within an ag area.

It was great riding today. Once we got 5 miles from Mizin the mist stopped and we had mild temps and even a tailwind for the afternoon. This is typical of the local roads we traveled . . . and virtually no traffic!!!

Go Mall . . . Go Mall and smell the roses!!! Two track path with paved lanes!!!

Soon I arrived in Skibbereen, our town for the night, staying at the West Cork Hotel. Nice happy hour with vino, beer and self-introductions of riders.

Dinner on our own tonight so Ron, Deb, Anne, Ben, Don and I went to the Church. An old Methodist Church now a restaurant. EXCELLENT food!!!