A few photos . . .

So its been over a month since we finished our mmmChallenge. I have to say that as soon as we finished we were so happy that we had managed to complete it. The morning afterwards, Andrew turned to me and said "is it silly that I feel sad that we've finished?" and it wasn't, cause I felt the same way. We had gotten into a nice routine of getting up, having breakfast, packing up, cycling, setting up camp . . . you get the idea. I really enjoyed the cycling, some of my friends think we are mad but it was a great journey.

So what next? I am not quite sure. I have no doubt that we will do something else. Lands End to John O'Groats is being uttered, as has Norway. I do know that I will be supporting the David Ashwell Foundation as much as I can. I will be using The Giving Machine every time I shop and collecting stamps.

As you can imagine we have taken a few photos on the way (slight understatement) and Andrew has come up with a creative way for you to view them without getting bored too quickly. We hope you enjoy this. We would like to say thank you to all our family, friends and colleagues for your support for the challenge. Your messages of support kept our tired legs pedalling. If you have been reading this blog and thinking "I'll sponsor them tomorrow". Please, please do it today. It takes 5 minutes to do on Virgin Money.

Hope you enjoy our photos! Here's to the next adventure.

Tips for a cycling holiday in Ireland

Time has flow past since the end of our mmm Challenge. For those of you that don't know, whilst we were cycling our final kilometres baby Auden was born.

I wanted to write a post for people planning a cycling holiday in Ireland. Andrew and I have been on a few cycling holidays in Scotland. We tend to camp on our cycling holidays. The first point I would make is that there seems to be fewer campsites in Ireland. You have to bear in mind that we are used to camping in Scotland, where you can wild camp. This isn't really allowed in Ireland  . . . and I'll leave it at that. Having said that we never had a problem finding somewhere to sleep. You just need to plan and we had this camping guide which helped. One tip is that if independent hostels have gardens they tend to provide camping as well. We did this twice, once in Donegal and once in Dingle. Both hostels were great and I would definitely recommend them.

When we packed for the challenge we packed three days food. But we really didn't need to. There are loads of food shops, we passed more than enough to buy food for the day. I would say again, just plan your day to see which towns you are going to pass through.

Last but not least, bike shops! As you know we needed to replace two spokes. We were quite lucky when they happened, near to big towns. If in doubt, ask! Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason and the Irish are really friendly. When Andrew's first spoke broke, a lovely guy stopped and took Andrew to his garage to use his tools. Good tip, if there isn't a bike shop look for outdoor adventure places that might have bikes.

Overall the terrain isn't too strenuous, getting out Killarney was probably the steepest hills we faced.

All in all, beautiful scenery, lovely people, amazing food. I couldn't recommend a cycling holiday in Ireland enough.