While in Cong, we read of a town named The Neale that had some interesting items in it; temples, a well, and a pyramid. Since it was relatively on the way, contained the alternatively spelled version of my mothers maiden name, and had weird things - we pinned it as the first destination of the day.
The history and story of these things is a strange one and not completely clear to me. What I did note, is relative to many things in Ireland, they were not incredibly old (18th to 19th century?). At the same time, there were some ancient cairns and ring-forts in the area. In conclusion, I do not know how much relation the name of the town and my mothers maiden name has, but it got us to poke around in the area and see some very interesting 'follies' From there we road to the larger village of, Ballinrobe, to utilize there bike shop to load up on some tubes for the new skinny (1-1/8") tire that was working well on the front of the tandem [still have the 2" on the back]. In town we had a fork/choice: the more direct, busy road or the more winding back roads - the options being separated by a lake. The group choice in Ireland has now historically been to do the back roads (as buses and lorries on skinny 100 kph roads is no fun) - the only caveat to them seems to be that you do a little more elevation as the roads are more up and down compared to their more congested counterparts. These up and downs always prove worth it for the views provided. The wonderful and not to hilly back-roads ride was perfect for us and put us into Castlebar by early evening. We would be camping in a 'holiday village' where the night shift attendant, Ronin, settled us in and gave us great advice on a pub to grab a pint and bite. The town of Castlebar would now be the home setting for adventures for a few days as dad would soon be splitting way from Skye and I for ~5 days. With this unplanned event ahead of us, we settled down for a busy start the next morning. -Charlie
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