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It was only dry for about the first twenty minutes of packing up, then the weather turned. Not windy, not cold, just wet, in a very drizzly Irish sort of a way at first, but heavier later. The only place I found to post yesterday’s blog without soaking everything was under a railway tunnel, on my route for the entire journey, the Waterford Greenway.

This was my first temporary office of the day. I had tried at the campground, but the rain was coming in hard off the sea and there was no shelter anywhere. Not a tempting swimming day either, I’m sure you u’ll agree, but I bet Vincent back in Duncannon still went out in it.

After my day off I was now turning back in a return loop towards the ferry at Rosslare. Stage one was to Waterford, then stage two would take me back to IOAC Camping in Tagoat. My ferry home is booked for Wednesday morning.

The Greenway is a continuous stretch of immaculately-surfaced old railway track, than runs for 47km from Dungarvan – close to the Anchor Bar where I was last night – to the centre of Waterford. It has 11 bridges, three viaducts and a 400-metre long tunnel.

It also runs very close to the road I cycled on to reach Clonea two days ago, and I could often look down on the hills I’d slogged up, enjoying the even incline of the greenway.

I have an unfulfilled ambition on these cycling trips to spot a whale, either from my bike or from the deck of a ferry. I’ve been in so many places that are famous for it, from the St Laurence River to the Bay of Fundy, from Newfoundland to the Outer Banks, to name just four, but I’ve never seen so much as the flash of a whale’s fluke. I continued my search this morning whilst I was on such a great smooth surface and no traffic to worry about, so close to the open ocean, knowing that Ireland has regular sightings of whales and dolphins and seals. I even kept my glasses on, spattered with rain, so I could focus properly on the sea, but no luck (I won’t give up on this).

It’s All In The Name

Almost as soon as I’d turned inland and built up a bit of speed on the deserted path, I saw a man on a tricycle coming towards me at a suprising speed. I stopped to try and work out how he was doing it, then as he slowed down and drew up alongside me I saw that he had batteries under a homemade wooden cover on the back, and he was riding a very vintage e-trike. We started chatting and he told me he cycled on the Greenway every day, living in Clonea on the coast but visiting friends along the old railway line. He sounded his bike horn for me, to demonstrate its capacity for scattering pedestrians, and I asked if I could film him doing it. He was very keen on the idea, as if it was a bit of a party piece for him. What I didn’t expect was that he’d continue talking afterwards, as if we were conducting a roadside interview. Getting a video of one of these encounters is a bit of a rarity – enjoy!

After he’d gone, I suddenly realised that I’d forgotten to ask him his name, which I always try and do. Once you’ve introduced yourselves properly to each other and shaken hands, I’ve noticed that the conversation often changes and people tell you about themselves. Feeling a bit frustrated, because this chap was a great talker, I pressed on until I reached a pink cafe building right on the track that was getting ready to open. I met the chap running it, and we properly introduced ourselves, with the sound of his cafe speaker playing You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon. He told me his name was Vincent. ‘Is that the same as Uinsean?’ I asked, having now learnt how to pronounce it (‘in-shen’). ‘No, I’m just Vincent,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been Uinsean since I was at school, and they made you answer in Irish!’

I asked if he knew the name of the speedy old fellow on the tricycle who had just been through? ‘No, I see him everyday, but I never found out his name, he goes so fast!’

He had a suggestion for me: ‘If you keep going for a few kilometres you’ll pass a crossing and a railwayman’s cottage. Knock on the door, and you’ll find Michael Dunne. He used to work on the railway. He’ll know his name for sure!’

On the way there I saw a sign for the famous 400-metre Ballyvoyle Tunnel, (built in 1878) with the instruction that all cyclists should dismount.

Sod that, I thought.

Straight after that came the Ballyvoyle Viaduct (also 1878), overlooking Flahavan’s Oat Mill, the first of two historic Irish food producers that make it to the blog today. They been on the site since before the 1780s. It’s still run by the 7th generation of Flahavans, and makes something called Flahavan’s Progress Oatlets, the most popular oats in Ireland.

Sure enough, when I reached the railway cottage I could see a man sitting with a cuppa in the lean-to conservatory, and waved at him. He came out, followed by his old black dog, who paused in the doorway and gave me a good long look, before wandering off into the cottage’s flowerbed to sniff around.

‘Are you Michael Dunne?’ I asked. ‘Yes, I’m Mick, Mick Dunne, what can I do for you?’ He was in his seventies and big chap. I told him about the man I’d passed and whether he knew his name, and he laughed. ‘Ah, that’s Willie, Willie O’Driscoll, on his tricycle was it? He was my neighbour,’ he said, pointing up the track, ‘but now he lives by the sea in Clonea with his wife. He’s 82 years old you know? And he can’t move unless he’s on that bike. His wife will be waiting for him at home with his zimmer frame, so he can get off the thing!’

Mick went on to tell me that he used to work on the railway and still rode his own bike on the greenway every day, and that the best place to get a second breakfast was the Coach House pub, about 25 minutes away. ‘Not cheap, mind. It’s not cheap at all, but it’s good.’

25 minutes later I was sitting in a big atrium of a dining area, eating the Coach House Greenway Breakfast special – no meat, but avocado mash, delicious flat, black local mushrooms, beans, eggs, tomatoes and potatoes, with sourdough toast and a coffee – probably the best single dish I’ve had all week. The playlist ran from Come On Eileen (Dexy’s Midnight Runners), to What’s Love Got To Do With It? (Tina Turner) and, for the second time that morning, You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)

I saw from my weather app that heavy rain was coming in from the sea, so I got moving and made a big effort on the last 20km stretch to Waterford (all distances are given in km here). I had to dismount when I got to Kilmeadan Station, the start of the Waterford Suir Valley Railway, which runs alongside the Greenway for a few miles beside the River Suir. You can see from the great speed the train travels at in the video below that it was a superhuman effort, especially in the now-heavy rain, to catch and then overtake it, but somehow I managed it. As I passed the engine cab, I waved and gave the driver the arm-pump sign for ‘sound your horn’, and he surprised me by responding with a proper salvo of blasts, to the rhythm of ‘Shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!’, hanging on to the last note like the end of a mighty symphony.

I haven’t had a reaction like that to a ‘sound-your-horn’ request since I passed this mile-long goods train in the Canadian Rocky Mountains near the town of Golden, when the force of the driver’s klaxon nearly blew me off my bicycle.

Because of the rain, which caught up with me in the end, I didn’t manage any more photos until arriving in Waterford:

I’ve noticed that the Irish are very relaxed about the rain. It’s not at all unusual to pass people walking along, chatting, smiling and laughing, with no umbrella and sometimes no coat at all, apparently totally unconcerned, as they wave or shout a ‘Howareya?’, that they’re getting a soaking. This happened several times on the bike path from Clonea into Dungarvan and back. I haven’t yet seen anyone holding a newspaper over their head, or pulling their jumper up and over themselves to keep the rain off, the way people do elsewhere. They also rarely mention the fact that I’m already soaked through when I speak to them – it’s sort of assumed. I guess that comes from the semi-continuous practice of coping with the weather chucking it down. I have been SO lucky on this trip. I would count today as really the first really proper wet day, and tomorrow looks like a return to drier conditions again, touch wood.

When I got a table at my third temporary office, a Caffè Nero in the centre of old Waterford, to wait out the rain a bit, a group of four Polish girls asked me to take a photo for them. They then offered to take one of me in return, and gave me directions like professional publicists to sit down and pretend I was typing and hard at work. ‘But you’ve got my iPad!’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing to type!’ ‘Never mind, pretend!’ said the girl. ‘I’ll make an angle, so it looks like you’re busy!’ She took several snaps, really getting into the whole thing, of which this is the only one where I look even a tiny bit like I’m really typing.

My AirBnB host called and I cycled off to check in, giving up on exploring the town bit more, as the rain teemed down. Instead I just relaxed and enjoyed having a room – such luxury – after 5 nights in the tent.

Signs That Are Funny