Rare Adventures

Category: Adventures

Stories about travel and adventure

Petrolhead tour: Wild Atlantic Way adventure in Ireland, Part 5

From Blarney Castle to Dublin

Day 5 and the final day of driving was another big one, all the way to Dublin and another 250 miles. At this point the novelty of the long drives was beginning to wear off, Wooksie had been doing very well in the passenger seat but her back was starting to complain so our mindset would be best categorised as lets get this done with the minimal hassle.

The first section of the drive was the countryside to Blarney Castle, which was our main event of the day, after that it was head for Dublin and every man, woman and child for himself.

Blarney Castle is a major tourist attraction and was full of coaches of Americans from Dublin and other tours who had come to kiss the Blarney Stone. The convoy arrived mostly together so we had a chance to line the cars up and a photo opportunity, as normal I missed the memo and was parked around the corner, but it made for a good video.

To be honest, there isn’t much to Blarney Castle, an interesting bit of history and the legend of being blessed by fairies if you kissed the Blarney Stone was one of the more ridiculous fables I’ve come across in my time, but we still queued for nearly an hour, to kiss the almost completely inaccessible Blarney Stone, which requires you to hang upside down with a bloke holding your ankle, quite a good way to get Covid as well I would imagine with the dozens of people before you doing the same thing.

After a pleasant hour wandering the grounds we bumped into Yaris GR Simon and had a much more interesting hour listening to his world when he was a Formula 1 Team Principal and eating ice cream.

We then spent the next few hours on back roads and motorways heading to Dublin and we ended up at the spectacular 5* St Helens hotel, great choice OTR guys. Which was fabulous, but where the staff were not too bright,

For some reason the entire hotel was designed to have nowhere to sit in the sun and enjoy our last night beers. So the Plymouth (me and Blowey) and the Pompey boys had to reorganise the furniture on the lawn so we could sit in the sun, and that worked very well.

We had our last night dinner together, which was fabulous chatting with our new friends despite the hotel’s best efforts to sabotage the event with slow service. However, the fun was not completely over, as the ferry back to the UK did not leave till 2pm.

There was time for one last high speed drive across the amazing Sally Pass, a mountain range that seemed to start almost within the city limits of Dublin. Wooksie wisely opted out with some of the other wives and went on a walking tour of Dublin, so the boys were left to their toys.

This was one of the most fun drives of the trip as the convoy stayed close together, Kevin out front was being an excellent pace man and alterted us to oncoming danger, whilst the rest of us had a high speed tour of the mountains – a great way to end.

We all headed back to the ferry for the 4 hour crossing and the long trip home to all corners of the British Isles, literally, from Scotland down to Plymouth and even over to Kent.

Though in my case it wasn’t quite so straight forward, I went back via the hotel to settle the bill, and my satnav gave me a different and much slower route to the ferry port, and as I sat in mile upon mile of queues I have to admit to having a bit of squeaky bum time as the clock ticked on, but I got there on time, to find a flustered Wooksie at the gate waiting for me, I didn’t bother mentioning that I’d gone up the wrong side of the motorway and was faced by a mass ot traffic that I just managed to duck away from down the slip road, but that is a story for another time. So, a wonderful week with the OTR boys, some of my besties and a whole bunch of great new people that sincerely hope I will get to meet again on a future adventures or chance meeting somewhere I very much hope.

12/08/2026
Petrolhead tour: Wild Atlantic Way adventure in Ireland, Part 4

From the Singing Chef to the Blarney Stone

The penultimate day of the tour and talk about the morning after the night before. Needless to say the day started off very slowly, lots of subdued people reflecting on the impact of Baby Guiness, I was reflecting on how I came to be in a fountain at 1.30am, and even worse, posted the image on Instagram that made me look like I had not pants on. The Scots were reflecting how Norway so nearly beat their old enemies, whilst the English started to dream of a World Cup final in 7 days time.

Ahead of us was the toughest drive of the tour, with 280 miles of Irish roads and a hangover. There was no sign of the Singing Chef at breakfast either, I’m pretty sure he was still in bed.

After a hearty breakfast, I dragged myself out to the car and managed to negotiate the route out of the hotel and into the town where we filled up with fuel for the day ahead. My head wasn’t able to cope with all the revving of the cars, so we let the convoy disappear into the distance and settled into a long, and hopefully incident free day, following the OTR satnav.

The route took us by motorway down to Limerick, which was thankfully without any incident. At one point, to our surprise, we passed the convoy filling up with fuel again and were once again, inadvertently in the lead. After negotiating the traffic jam called Limerick, it was so bad the satnav gave up tried to send us north again. We headed out to the spectacular coastal scenery of the Ring of Berra where we were sharing the road with lots of Sunday drivers.

By the time we got to Killarney the roads were crammed, the scenery was beautiful but we didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy it with the roads being busy, and it wasn’t just cars, we had horse and carts and even ended up in a sheep jam, when the hairy beasts asserted their right to roam.

Eventually we came to the highlight of the day, the spectacular Heal Pass, which meanders over a mountain range at the point where the Atlantic Western Approaches meet the south coast of Ireland, with deep water inlets and bays stretching miles.

As we climbed over the pass we stopped to have a chat with a lad doing the trip on a motorbike and then Sandy and Louise appeared, thankfully not with a tray of Baby Guiness on this occasion, but in their supercharged Jag, so we traversed the pass together and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a video of them travelling down through the valley, it appears that my eyesight was affected by the night before.

For the rest of the trip we ran through pretty, colourful, towns and villages before finally ending up at the penultimate hotel, the Celtic Rose at Rosscarbery, Mysteriously, we were one of the first to arrive again, I think it might have been because we don’t get distracted, me and Wooksie are a very efficient couple.

Arriving early gave me a chance to head off a 4^th night crisis with Mr Blowey’s room. I was able to have a chat with the receptionist to make sure he had a room with a view across the bay, like us. For once, he was happy with his room, but then got agitated because I didn’t want to get involved in drinking copious amounts of wine again after the night before.

Unfortunately, the view across the bay also included a view across the busy main road as we had the noisiest rooms in the hotel, meanwhile, the Pompey boys have a view across a very peaceful graveyard at the back and slept like logs.

11/08/2026
Spills, thrills, and The Mechanic at Les Gets

3 years ago I smashed up my hip in a mountain bike fall in the Alps, and the mate I was riding with was nowhere to be seen when it happened, he had charged off down the mountain and I had to find my own way down, on that occasion it was my mate The Chemist who disappeared down the mountain, and as I pointed out to him, what is the point of you being here if we don’t stick together.

A year later, armed with a replacement hip. I agreed to go to the Alps again, but explained to my mate The Mechanic, that I would need to take things very easy as the hip was only 3 months old and we would need to stick together just in case. First run of the trip and he belted off down the mountain on his own and left me to it. Once again, I pondered the point of going mountain biking with mates, when in fact, you don’t see them on the runs.

Last year I drove down to the Alps, loaded up with my new enduro bike and The Mechanic’s newly acquired second hand bike. We had concluded that the cost of renting a bike, about £80 per day, justified buying a second hand bike and leaving it down there. My mate managed to find a bike but I didn’t have much luck but managed to find a new one in the sales that was 60% off, which I decided was a safer bet, as the bikes take a real hammering.

After getting all the gear down to France for him, The Mechanic then decided life was too complicated and he couldn’t find the time to join me – great.

Last year , I ended up riding on my own, which wasn’t my first choice option but as the days went on, I realised that I was actually enjoying the rides more on my own than I would have done with having a mate around. I could go where I wanted, as fast as a wanted, didn’t have to wait for anyone or try and work out where they had ended up.

So, this year, I had the pleasure of The Mechanics company again and I have to say it was rather eventful. If you have read the blogs from last summer, you will have noted that I was haunted by a Gremlins that made my life difficult by hiding things away and breaking stuff, this year I had The Mechanic.

To be fair to The Mechanic, he is obviously very good with mechanical things and does like to go fast on his bike. The problem is that his competence doesn’t always match his speed, when he was last here 2 years ago, I spotted his legs sticking out of a bush he had veered into at high speed for no obvious reason. I helped him out and dusted him down, he had had a similar incident at Cannock Forest a few years ago when he ended up concussed.

To start the trip, we headed straight for Les Carroz to warm up on their quieter runs. On the first run down The Mechanic was following in a well behaved manner, but at a fork in the trail we went different ways and he got to the bottom a bit before me. On the subsequent run I found him in a ditch and he had a few more bumps before the gears on his bike broke, turned out he hadn’t used his mechanical prowess to check his second hand bike before sending it to the Alps.

All that being said, there was one definite advantage of having my mate with me, we could wander down to the lake for a swim and a beer. He claimed to be alcohol free, I soon cured him of that again. With the sun out and temperature at 35c, it is not unreasonable to assume that the water in the local lake would be reasonably warm, but I learned to my horror last year, that it is fed by a mountain stream and is absolutely freezing.

A good chance for a prank on my mate, so I wandered out on the pontoon and jumped in, held my breath and shouted, “Come on mate it’s lovely”. He dived in and the look on his face was a picture when he resurfaced, he was gasping for air and clearly on the verge of a heart attack from the icy water. Nothing like nearly killing your mate for a laugh.

Next day, we headed for Les Gets, took the lifts to the top of the area, the views are absolutely stunning and it was yet another beautiful day. The newly attached replacement parts were installed and he was ready to go.

The runs in Les Gets are very steep, I led the way down and arrived at one of the fire road break points and waited for my mate, and waited, and waited and eventually he turned up covered in mud, a badly damaged finger, a broken brake lever and something else had broken as well, apparently the brake lever broke off on a steep turn, hardly idea.

It was all a mystery how this catastrophe had happened and why he crashed so badly, however I had a fair idea, it was likely to do with speed and competence. Anyway, it marked the end of that part of the day as he couldn’t ride with a bike in bits.

So, he made his way back down the mountain on the fire road with a snapped ligament on little finger, only a front brake and his pride as bruised as his body. As a good friend, I decided to do a few runs on my own to have some fun and promised to meet him again at the bottom in a couple of hours.

When I got to the bottom the repair bill for his bike had reached £500 and I was generally congratulating myself on the wisdom of buying a bargain new rather than a second hand bike, if the Mechanic was having this trouble imagine the mess I would get into.

Anyway, we were up and running again and we headed off on our adventures for the rest of the day. I made sure I was second down the slope and I had to take care to check bushes and obstacles along the way to make sure the Mechanic wasn’t lying there, we had more incidents but they were harmless compared to the morning and the day before.

Up to this point, I was congratulating myself on my smooth riding and not falling off, well all that went horribly wrong on the last run home, when I took a berm fast and found a loose rock on the bend and stacked the bike big time and arrived in the bar at the bottom covered in scrapes and mud.

As I sat there supping I beer, I reflected on a strange thought, that even though it hurt like hell, but at least I knew I was alive and it was a good way to celebrate by 67^th birthday.

As the repair bill and the injury list mounted, the last day we decided he needed a day off so we went for a walk up the wonderful Cirque Cheval canyon to look at the amazing waterfalls and just get over the injuries before heading home.

We also had an England game to watch that night when we took on DR Congo, and it is fair to say that the match didn’t set the French alight, and we really struggled to find a bar to watch the game, but we got there in the end !

So, this was my first holiday with the Mechanic since our trip to Ibiza last year, and it was also my first accompanied mountain bike trip for 2 years. My mate is always good company and events are normally unconventional and this trip was no different, we had a lot of fun as usual.

10/08/2026
Petrolhead tour: Wild Atlantic Way adventure in Ireland, Part 3

Rally driving, road rage, a singing chef and a dip in the fountain

This was the day when the fun and laughs did not stop from the moment to set off to collapsing into bed at 2am.

Screenshot

At this point we had reached the halfway point of our tour, and we were up and ready, I was determined to follow the group this time and see what it was like in the convoy. We had a wonderful route over moors planned by the OTR guys.

So, I tucked into the convoy determined to enjoy it. For the first hour I followed one of the little Yaris GR rally cars through the mountains, The owner, Simon, had to do all the work watching for dangers ahead as we headed across the cliffs, I momentarily looked around and enjoyed the scenery and when I looked back, he was gone, you can’t relax for a second with these guys.

We came along a beautiful coast road and the OTR guys found a little coffee van in the middle of nowhere on top of the cliffs. To our surprise, in this wind torn wilderness, there was a museum to the worlds oldest farming settlement from some 5000bc, I did find this at little bit of an incredible claim, but as I couldn’t prove it wrong, I guess we have to accept it, but by far the most interesting thing about the Failte museum was the toilets, that we needed after our coffee!

As we headed through the next town the group got split up and I found myself out in front setting the pace, whilst and knowing the cars behind me would overtake if I didn’t put my foot down, I really pushed myself as we flew across the moorland roads, it was absolutely exhilarating pushing the Porsche in a way that I had never done before. Having Sandy and Mr Blowey behind me itching to overtake if I gave them a chance, I kept me foot to the floor.

Arms locked on the steering wheel like Colin McRae the rally driver, the manual gearbox being pushed to the limit, the roar of the engine to keep revs in the middle range, eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead I had absolutely no idea what the scenery was like because I was firmly fixed on the road ahead and determined to make up distance in the bends so that the supercharged Jag of Sandy wouldn’t overtake me on the straight. As Wooksie said, it was like being in a rally car, at the end of it we pulled into the little coastal town of Mallaranny to give us chance to calm down.

My friend Mr Blowey pulled in behind me and opened with the words “Thank god you took that cork out of your ass mate”, which I took to mean well done. Then things really kicked off, there wasn’t much space in the road, Mr Blowey was stood beside his car, but another car driven by a pensioner insisted on pushing through as he stood there.

At this point there was a loud howling noise coming from Mr Blowey, basically the car had driven over his foot, and he was not happy. The car stopped and was pursued by Mr Blowey hurling abuse. It bought back memories of our younger days where such things had turned into quite major incidents as punishment for stupidity was administered, but now in his older and calmer years, he noticed the driver was about 80 so limped back to the car after handing out some obscenities as punishment.

This wasn’t the end of it though, because he had to put the roof up on his convertible. Daz’s mate Pompey Ian was stood close by and was given instructions on what he had to do to help. To be fair, after a long drive, Ian had other things on his mind and didn’t quite follow the instructions about putting all his weight on the boot lid. Ian, unfortunately, took his weight off the boot lid too soon and before we knew it, the boot lid was jammed with all sorts of bits poking out in the wrong places.

This was now all getting too much for Mr Blowey and he cracked, lots of rude words and he pretty much blamed Ian for wrecking his holiday, wrecking his car, and the Iranian war. To be honest I could see he was holding back his violent tendencies as best he could, bearing in mind his foot was throbbing like a good un as well.

Luckily Aston Martin Stuart turned up, with a calm disposition and his excellent toolkit, and before we knew it the damage had been recovered, so we all sat down for a nice lunch on the seafront in the sun prepared for the next escapade.

After the excitement I was only too glad to settle into a drive along the coast, enjoy the scenery as we followed the Sky Road along the cliffs and into our hotel for the night, a genuine castle called Abbeyglen Castle with the promise of a great night out, but not before another trauma for Mr Blowey.

After we had all checked in, Mr Blowey had to pop up to our room to collect his stuff. Fortunately for us we had been given the best room, not only did we have fabulous view of the coast, but we also had a patio door out on to a turret that acted as a balcony.

Mr Blowey looked at our room, stomped around the balcony in silence, checked the bathroom, let out a fearsome growl and stormed out of the room. It transpired he had a room with a lovely view in the rear of 2 trees, and he managed his frustration by stamping down the corridor back to his room, refusing to speak to me again. This was the 3^rd consecutive night that we had a better room, and he was struggling with the unfairness, his throbbing foot and the burgeoning repair bill for his car.

Saturday night dinner was a grand affair and even Mr Blowey cheered up. The owner of the castle gave a wonderful speech about the history of the hotel, and then we moved on to dinner where he became the centre piece of entertainment, even sharing his Irish version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Not only that, but we also had the services of the Singing Chef, who sang Irish ditties between courses, it was a truly fun experience and we had a wonderful time. The food and service also fantastic, life couldn’t be better.

But it didn’t stop there, England were playing Norway in the World Cup, so we all headed to the bar to watch the game. Strangely, the Scots were having a great time when England were 1 0 down, so much so that Sandy’s daughter, the vivacious Louise who had already been lots of fun up to now, stepped up a gear and bought a round of Baby Gunnesses, which inspired others to do the same and before we knew it everyone was singing and laughing.

Not so much when England scored their second goal, but that didn’t stop the banter with more Scots in the shape of father and son team Cam and Fraser getting in on the act as well, booing every England move and cheering Norway wildly, so much so that a couple of genuine Norwegians couldn’t stand the noise and went back to their rooms. The Scots even decided to wear their own football shirts as an declaration of war.

Even better, Wookie’s (who had also gone to bed by now) won the sweepstake with the time of England’s second goal, so we won a pot of about £40. The next morning, we realised that the money had disappeared overnight, did the barman take it, but we then came up with the most likely explanation,

I’d used it to buy a round. This round, amongst many others, pushed Pompey Ian over the top and he collapsed with bout of Guiness poisoning.

Things deteriorated further at the end, for some reason I’d promised to jump in the fountain if England won, so I did. Cam and Fraser were too drunk to get a photo, and I started to suffer from exposure waiting for this photo to be taken. I headed back to our posh bedroom and couldn’t sleep, because every time I rolled over, I started giggling again, which didn’t please Claire very much.

The next day we were all rather subdued at breakfast, armed with sore heads we headed off on the longest day of the tour, 280 miles to Cork, with the only aspiration being to get to the next hotel without any more incidents.

07/08/2026
Hidden Treasures of Seim Reip

Visiting Anker Wat had been one my ambitions for many years, so we detoured from Vietnam for a short stay in Siem Reip to take in the temples. We weren’t’ the only ones, as everyone who comes here is heading for Anker Wat, which is a shame but Siem Reip is a really nice place and Cambodia has a lot to offer.

The city leaders are a clever lot, and to keep us hanging around the created Pub Street, which is another good reason to come here. They have created a long street full of bars, that keeps the rowdy tourists in one place, having fun while the citizens carry on with their lives uninterrupted.

The highlight of this trip was the HeroRats that are covered later in the blog, they were incredible and, in many ways, the highlight of the trip. A creature that the whole world regards as vermin is at the core of saving lives and removing the landmines that still remain from the war with the US.

To be honest, Pub Street is overhyped, all the bars are doing beer deals and food, there is the odd night club or live music venue scattered around but the best bit, is most of the bars are airconditioned. As with many things in this part of the world, Pub Street gives you great Instagram photos to share, which of course makes it even more popular.

Everything was geared towards the travellers so we ended up eating there every night because it was nice and easy, and the beer and food was cheap, but by the 3^rd night it we definitely time for a change of scenery.

To get a better perspective of town, we found a tuk tuk tour called Hidden Treasures and had a great guide called Lux, (you can find him on Facebook as Lux Lux). He had great knowledge of the history and spoke fantastic English, he also had a real passion for his country and he made the tour extra special for us.

Psar Chaa – Old Market. Local food market was the first stop and it was jaw dropping. The region is full of markets and things but this one had the most incredible variety of fresh food. Most of it was fish from a giant lake the size of a small sea a few miles away that seem to feed the entire region. All the farmers carted their products into this central area and the place was packed with locals doing their daily shop from the amazing it display of vegetables and meat; it makes our weekly trip to Lidl look particularly dull!

Wat Preah Prom Rath. Everyone comes here Anker Wat, but there are temples spread around the whole city. The temples are unique as they blend Buddhism with Hinduism, historically the religion is Buddhism but one of their kings changed the religion to Hindu and this lasted for a couple of centuries, before another king changed it back, so this means the temples have artifacts from both religions.

It isn’t a visit to a temple unless they have a sleeping Buddhu, and this one had a beauty.

Satcha – Cambodian Handicraft Cente. Another really interesting place where the locals maintain ancient crafts, it was a bit like an apprentice college. This isn’t really my sort of thing, I couldn’t help but be intrigued watching the delicacy of the stone or wood engraving, and how the pottery and painting studios. After 30 minutes we got on to the good bit, they make cracking coffee.

APOPO Visitor Center, otherwise known as the HeroRats. This was absolutely incredible. Rats are trained to sniff out landmines. APOPO is the charity that trains the rats in Cambodia and in parts of Africa as well. Apparently, rats are intelligent and sensitive creatures and watching the affection that the staff at the visitor centre show them is quite moving. They take years to domestic and train to do the minesweeping, but they have saving hundreds of lives.

I hadn’t realised that their rural countryside is still littered with landmines and children are still being killed and maimed, they rats are not only saving lives, but they also open up more land for cultivation as there are vast areas that are still too dangerous to inhabit, which is an incredible tragedy.

We took in another temple where there was some celebration going on, with people having a good time but it was all getting a bit hot by then and we could feel the swimming pool and cocktails calling.

Lux had rather impressively taken us on a route that actually left outside our hotel, so the call of the pool was even louder.

Thanks again to Lux for a great day.

06/08/2026