Westport to Italy, the Smarter Travel way: Dublin to Cambridge

I've made it to Cambridge!!

I arrived in Dublin on Thursday and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to cycle around, well apart from the taxis parked in cycle lanes. Then off to Peter and SJ's wedding in Antrim, it's beautiful up there, I'm looking forward to going back. Great wedding, great weekend and great fun hanging out with the gang.

With some of the crew at the Giants Causeway

Elephant Rock, Balintoy, Co. Antrim

Got a lift back to Dublin with Denny then on my bike again to Rob's house, stayed there and got the ferry on Monday morning. I got a SailRail ticket, only €46 from Dublin to Milton Keynes and another €10 for the bike. It's great because it's an open ticket so because I would have to wait 3 hours for a train that could take my bike I just cycled on to Bangor and met the train there instead. Cycling off the ferry was a bit mad as it was just me and a load of Artic trucks!

Getting the ferry, Dublin

It was a lovely cycle to Bangor, pretty hilly in places but lovely once I got off the main road and I got to cycle over the Menai Bridge which was cool.

Menai Bridge, Isle of Anglessy to Bangor

Putting my bike on the train from Bangor to Milton Keynes was easy enough, someone else had parked their bike and taken up the half of my space but it's not very clear how to load the bike so I can see why it happened. I think we were meant to hang the bikes somehow but there was no instructions or pictures.

I left Milton Keynes station, went straight to a map and didn't learn anything from it, so I asked which way is east. Milton Keynes has a massive amount of cycle networks and at the beginning I thought it was amazing, bike parking everywhere, bike lanes everywhere, stickers pointing to the National Cycle network, all good until you want to find out where to go! I knew about National Cycle Route 51 before I left and that it goes East to West and through Milton Keynes and Cambridge. I tried to buy a map online before I left but I couldn't find any for that section of the route. I had a route along minor roads planned but there were loads of stickers for route 51 so once I had the direction sorted out I hit the path! However, after an hour and a half of cycling around and not seeing a single directional sign I was getting pretty frustrated. I asked a number of people for help too and nobody really knew about Route 51 except that it went by their estate. I came off route 51 and figured I should get onto the road and try and to find my original route as route 51 was taking me south for some reason.

There's a cycle path alongside the motorway which I thought would be good but whenever it came up to roadsigns and a roundabout the cycle routes went to a maze underneath the roundabout with no roadsigns so it was really hard to figure out. I once again I ended up asking a fellow cyclist and thankfully he could give me some advice. He first of all completely agreed with my feeling of lack of signage, he said it's the same for motorists and their road signs, good if you want to go anywhere in Milton Keynes but if you want to leave the city the signage is very bad.

Cycle parking everywhere in Milton Keynes

Cycle track along canal in MK

National Cycle Route 51, stickers everywhere but no map or signs to say where it goes

Anyway, after the slowest 16km of my life (1.5hrs, I usually do about 22km/hr) I finally got onto the minor roads and followed my original path. The English countryside is lovely and the drivers are so polite and wait until it's clear to overtake and give cyclists loads of space.

I passed a Weetabix field while on my bike, think it's a sign for what I should eat for brekkie!

Weetabix field!!

I'd a nice cycle but because of spending so long in Milton Keynes I wasn't going to reach Cambridge before dark so my bike and I jumped on a bus from a small village, paid £5 and finished our journey to Cambridge.

I finally arrived at Lornas house at 10.30pm after leaving Robs house in Dublin at 6.30am, long day but great to be on the road! Cambridge is great, bikes everywhere and great to catch up with Lorna.

Being a tourist with Lorna in Cambridge