Ireland

As dgym mentioned in the previous post, I am planning on doing something fun while he's busy chucking himself off mountains in Spain next month. Since cycle-camping around the Channel Islands sounded like my idea of fun, I decided to look into it.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out as planned.

My first intention was to concentrate on visiting the island of Sark, which is a lovely car-free haven of bikey goodness and apparently rather pretty. I soon discovered that the Isle of Sark Shipping company, the means by which one reaches the island, cannot carry bicycles over from Guernsey, therefore I would have to either walk around or rent one. At about the same time, I learned that Sark is about a mile across and probably not worth devoting five days to.

So Sark became a daytrip plan. I decided to base myself in Guernsey, and explore all of the islands. Unfortunately, that plan has fallen apart since I discovered that (a) all three of the campsites I could find on Guernsey are closed until April or May. (b) most of the guest houses and hotels are also closed until April or May (c) the ferry to Alderney doesn't start up until April. Alderney has little blonde hedgehogs, and if there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's that you should never pass up on the opportunity to see little blonde hedgehogs.

So hopefully that'll be something for a little later in the year and dgym will come along too.

But it's OK - I have also found out that getting to Ireland is cheaper than I thought and it even looks like there are some open campsites and hostels in March. I've just booked my train and ferry to Dublin where I'll be spending the first and last nights (it's a full day's travel between Dublin and the south UK) and will be getting the train across to the west coast, probably to the Burren - although I don't think I'll be riding a 6ft-wide ledge along the Cliffs of Moher like these crazy people.

A nice place to live?

We have been trying to avoid high house prices, mosquitoes , noisy dogs and unfavorable self employment laws for a while now. The further we go the easier things become financially, but it also becomes much harder to see our family and friends. We have even tried to persuade family and friends to come with us, but the response has been less than enthusiastic.

If you can't find the house you are looking for, you can always try building your own. If you are prepared to do all the work yourself and use cheap materials you could end up with a nice place like this self built house for under £20,000. Of course we would have to change the name of our blog to Bike Hobbits, but but after that we should be all set.

Early next month I am going on a hang gliding course in Spain with Steve. I am really looking forward to it, it should be a lot of fun and hopefully we will get some great photos of the scenery and not too many of hospitals.

Hel has seen enough of Spain for now, and is planning on a little cycling tour of Guernsey and Jersey instead.