Posted October 14, 2013 by Ryan in Trips 441

Cycling Sky Road

Living out my Game of Thrones fantasies at Clonmacnoise

Day three of our 23 day European extravaganza was rather uneventful, with the most notable thing during our commute from Dublin to Clifden in the West of Ireland being the rare occurrence of an Irish skyscape (gray and cloudy), but still no rain. We did stop at Clonmacnoise along the way, which is well out into the boonies and, while historically interesting, is visually mediocre. It was worth the stop, however, as there isn’t much else on the drive. We also had our first introduction to delicious Tayto chips on the drive, and they wouldn’t be our last of the trip.

Clifden is a great little town, situated at the base of the very impressive Twelve Bens Mountain range. We finally got our first taste of Irish Fiddle music at J O’Connelly’s, which had eluded us in Dublin, the night we arrived there.

Clifden, as viewed from above at the start of Sky Road

On day four it was time to check out Sky Road just outside of Clifden. Another sunny and cloudless day welcomed us. Is this really Ireland?

Most people drive the short but stunning road, but we decided to bike it. I highly recommend this, as there is really only one place on the whole trip that cars can pull off, but with our bikes we could stop anywhere we wanted for photos. Of course I made full use of that, putting my new DSLR lenses to work. The bike rentals were cheap and easy (15 euro per bike for 24 hours, picked up in town without any reservations). The views as we biked along were stunning, and we were able to soak it in as we cycled along casually.

Posing with our trusty steeds

We started on Upper Sky Road, planning to finish on Lower Sky Road. Just prior to Sky Road splitting into Upper and Lower Sky roads you’ll notice Clifden Castle a ways down the hillside from you. There is a gate you can go through and walk down to the castle, but nowhere to park nearby so it’s limited to cyclers or those that chose to walk from town (it’s not too far a walk).

After a quick stop at the pull-off/picnic area at the top we made a wrong turn on the way down (I was pretty sure we were going the wrong way but Stacie was fairly adamant) and ended up staying on regular old “Sky Road” rather than Lower Sky Road (we went right, so make sure you go left). This meant we went around the backside of the peninsula where the views weren’t nearly as good, though we did get to watch the Twelve Bens Mountains as we rode back towards them. It also meant we had a short ride on the N59 highway on our way back to Clifden which was an interesting adventure with cars whizzing by on the narrow road. After arriving back in Clifden, we tried to cycle the Lower Sky Road to see what we missed but Stacie was spent a little ways through and we turned back, sufficiently drained from the hilly ride. Drained enough to help us at least get some sleep later that night back at the Alcock and Brown Hotel which does not have air conditioning and, in Ireland’s current bizzaro world sunny state, was extremely hot.

Stacie cycling towards Connemara on the wrong side of the peninsula

After dropping off our bikes we decided to take a walk down Beach road which is accessed from the center of town and goes along the harbor about a mile and a half out to the Boardwalk Cafe. It is a popular walk with locals and we saw a lot of them out walking their dogs or just getting some exercise. Out at the cafe the locals were enjoying the good weather with a barbecue out on the patio. We ran into one of the bartenders from Lowry’s pub, which we had visited earlier, and grabbed a beer and sat down by the water before heading back and calling it a night without any additional pub stops in our very tired state.