October 1, 2019 - County Meath, Ireland

Not a lot of pictures today, it was mostly ride south and try to stay warm.  After a very nice breakfast at the Salthouse Hotel we geared up and started south.  We bypassed Belfast and stopped for coffee and warmth at McCartneys in Moira, Ireland.

Once we crossed the invisible border between Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland speeds changed from mph to kph and currency from Pound Sterling to Euro.  Brexit may change all of that, or not.  Brexit is about all we see on the TV news.

The Salthouse Hotel spoiled us for future hotels, it was very nice.  And let's just say that the Dalys Inn in County Meath, where we are staying tonight, is not the Salthouse Hotel.

One thing we have noticed on this trip is that we have been traveling fewer miles per day and travel times are hard to gauge.  As you can see on the map below we covered a fairly large segment of the Isle today and really did not go very far compared to U.S. distances.  We had highways for over half the trip today and we made excellent time averaging 75-80 mpg on the highway.  However, for part of the trip we were on narrow country roads and maybe had an average speed of 35-40 mpg.  As we start heading further south in Ireland there won't be any highways, only local roads so travel will be slower and more difficult to gauge travel times.

Tomorrow we return the motorcycle and rent a car.  It looks like Hurricane Lorenzo has followed us and will hit Thursday as a tropical storm with high winds and lots of rain.  We had always planned on changing from the bike to a car and the storm just makes the decision easier, plus the car rental is about one-third the cost of renting the motorcycle.

McCartneys in Moira, Ireland

Moira, Ireland

Our travels today