Ireland Tour 2015 Diary - Day 6 - Rosslare to Pembroke to Home

This is the final instalment of the Ireland Tour 2015 Diary and it sees us completing the full circle back to home. If you missed Day 5, click here to have a gander at that and if you've got any questions about the trip at all - where we stayed, the ferries, the Ulster GP, the bikes, the luggage, the roads - either leave a comment or check out the contact page and get in touch through email or Twitter.

Tuesday 11th August

After rising early and checking in at the port, we enjoyed breakfast in one of the many ferry cafes as the sun rose higher marking one last beautiful day to end our trip on.

Once full from my bacon baguette, I wandered around the ship for a bit before going to sit with the majority of the group on some sofas we seemed to have accquired. The nex 2 and a bit hours were then filled with sleeping, dozing and the occasional shift of position.

During the crossing, all of us fell asleep for a period of time which shows that late nights and early morning with lots of riding and fresh air in between can catch up with you and catches up quick when you finally stop.

21 sleepy bikers

Upon docking in Pembroke, there was lots of hugs and goodbyes as over the route back we would all be splitting off to go our own way home.

We headed back mainly on quiet-ish A roads back towards home which were the best surfaced roads we had all ridden on in a while and slowly we all split until I was in a group heading back across the country of about 8 bikes rather than 19. We stopped for a late afernoon snack at Llanwrtyd Wells which also is where the annual bog-snorkelling championships take place. Three other members of our group caught up with us there so joined us for our cafe stop.

There wasn't quite enough chairs in the area we were sat in however so one of our group ended up sitting on a child's chair next to the table with all of the colouring crayons on which resulted in a beautiful drawing of one of the guys' MT 09 Tracer...

A designer's drawing of a Yamaha MT09 Tracer..

After that we carried on homewards, entering England a little while later. The ride home was largely uneventful apart from when we got closer to where the majority of the group lived so we started to split off further and waving seemingly randomly on the dual carriageway draws some amused looks which always makes me smile.

We (mum, dad and I) arrived home at around 7pm absolutely shattered but also pretty proud of what we'd achieved. Well I was proud of myself at least, seeing as it was my first big trip on the SV650.

Somehow, we managed to get great weather for the whole trip apart from one evening of rain on the way back to the hotel from the Ulster GP and the roads (despite me moaning about the condition of some of them), the hotels and the restaurants/pubs we found were all great but what really made the trip for me was the people that went with us. The atmosphere was always joyous and the good times really did just keep coming.

The planning is now in the pipeline for the next trip away, just need to save up the money now!

Until next time folks, ride safe
TFB