From Galway we decided to go South to the city of Cork. We found a host through Couchsurfing, made plans to meet him at the bus station and then go to the English Market to get some things for dinner. We were at the pick up point, waiting for him to pull up in a car, we knew what he loked like from the photos on couchsurfing.com Our attention is grabbed by a red haired man wearing a red shirt on a tandem bike with a girl on the back and trailer with backpack behind. That’s him!
Right away the girl hops off the back, gives a quick hello and runs for her bus, only to come back a few moments later as we introduce ourselves and strap our backpacks on the trailer. She missed her bus so she will go with us to the market and then go back to the station to catch the next bus. Darren has another bike locked up at the station and goes to unlock it so John will have a bike to ride. 3 of us, Darren on the front pedals, the girl (whose name I am sorry I cannot remember) on the second seat and me on the back. John gets set up on his bike and we are off down the busy high street to the market! There we meet 2 other girls, they live in Cork and are friends with Darren from the Couchsurfing site, they are from Italy, going to school in Cork. We go into the market and get some things for dinner, smoked herring, cheese, some greens, we decide to make a few different salads for dinner. Darren has a bike workshop near the community garden so we part ways with the other girls and the 3 of us cycle up to the workshop and garden. It’s much more comfortable to ride the tandem with 2 instead of 3, Darren tells us he has had as many as 5 on the tandem at once! Must have been quite a site, we got lots of stares, waves, shouts and laughs with just the 2 of us on the bike!
Up at the workshop we have to wheel out the pedi cabs and a water wheel that are stored there and we help Darren find some pieces to make an adjustment to the paniers on the back of the tandem and adjust the other bike for John.
Then we walk over to the community garden and pick lettuces and lovage for dinner….
We bike back through town to Darren’s house We thought we had a big adventure already, after a 4 hour bus ride and then bike ride across Cork, but no, the adventure had just begun…
sierrajohnrambleon 