Okay it’s probably best to humour me. So you could say: “No Colm, you’re as physically fit as you were five years ago, those mean old hills played a trick on you. And I know you’ll still be a cycling superstar fifty years from now!” Why aren’t you saying that? Why? Oh okay then, I’ll get on with the story.
I have written another blogpost about cycling to Corrin Hill. Here’s that:
That one gave me quite bad anxiety about not being able to finish the cycle. On this trip, I had that feeling some of the time, but the feeling wasn’t quite as intense. Though it was quite a tiring and dehydrating cycle!
The day I picked for the cycle was yesterday (2nd of June). I’m very cautious when it comes to cycling in hot weather, but the problem is of course, do I really want to wait till August or maybe even September until I do my next cycle? Contrary to what a lot of non-Irish people believe, and contrary to what a lot of Irish people believe (seriously how is this possible when they live here?) we do get a good few hot days in the Summer, days when you’ve got to be careful on the bike, days when no matter how cautious you are, you’ll still feel like the sun melted you by the end of the cycle. But there’s a few shops on the way, plenty of opportunities to stock up on water and food, so I thought, throw caution to the wind!
Of course my anxious brain sent a letter of protest against this, so I wrote back, “Thank you anxious brain, your viewpoint is very important to me.” And basically I just fobbed my anxiety off with excuses until it gave up. I mean it didn’t give up completely, it made me check that I had packed my keys, wallet and phone like six trillion times, but, I’m happy to say I won this battle. Screw you anxiety!
I hadn’t been to Corrin Hill in five years, and part of the reason I wanted to go back was because there are, I’m told, squirrels and buzzards there. (I saw neither.) Would you believe I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel in my life? I think I saw a buzzard once but didn’t photograph it. I didn’t see either of these animals, but I did see other interesting ones that I’ll talk about shortly.
The first two thirds or so of the cycle went fine. As far as Rathcormac you’re cycling on pleasant enough country road, and from here I could see the Galtee mountains in the distance. But from Rathcormac on, that’s where it gets unpleasant.
From Rathcormac to the hill leading up to Corrin Hill, the hardshoulder is just, stoney, it’s like they were building the hard shoulder and then just went home. And someone asked, “Are you concerned about the fact that you didn’t finish building the hard shoulder?” And the response was, “No.” So I had a choice between riding on the hardshoulder, which destroyed every one of my bones, even bones you wouldn’t think of, like bone 764, or riding on the road where the traffic was moving fast. What I opted to do was ride on the road when the traffic was very quiet, and move back into the hard shoulder as traffic got heavier. What did my poor bones do to anyone?
And then came the hill before Corrin Hill. This hill really sapped my energy. I had to take a rest I think three, maybe four times to cycle up it. And, as it would do through a lot of the journey, one of my pedals started making a weird noise, as if to say, “Maybe I’ll strand you more than 30 miles from home or maybe I won’t”. My bike is cruel like that, it won’t just spontaneously implode, so that you know that you’re trapped miles from home, it’ll just sort of, hint that maybe it might spontaneously implode, it’ll keep you guessing, so it’s much crueler in the end then if the bike simply blew up.
I reached the entrance to Corrin hill. My energy felt depleted from the hill I just cycled up, but as I’ve learned from many years of cycling, you’ll often feel like your energy is spent, but it’ll come back in about ten minutes or so. So I made my way to the top of Corrin Hill.
The top of Corrin Hill is quite beautiful, you can see the Galtee mountains and the Nagle mountains, and possibly even the Knockmealdowns. And I love the cairn. But this time I wanted to explore the parts of Corrin Hill that I don’t see as often, so I went into one of the beautiful forests that are on Corrin Hill.
This kind of forest I like, where the ground beneath your feet feels like a soft carpet that you could walk on all day. And I heard many beautiful birds singing. Sadly, I managed to make a bunch of breathing noises while the birds were singing, so all the recordings in the forest are no good! There was one I got later that’s an okayish recording, I’ll get to that shortly.
I wrote a blogpost a few weeks ago about how one of my favourite things now is bird and bug photography. Here’s that:
So now when I go to a place I’ve been to many times before, I look at the place through new eyes. What birds, insects and spiders are there, were always there, but I was completely unaware because of my lack of awareness about animals? Sometimes if you go back to somewhere you’ve been to before, you’ll find loads of new animals, but on Corrin Hill yesterday, I found just one, but it was an insect I was excited to find. A spotted longhorn. I’d wanted to find a longhorn beetle for a while, because they look so damn cool, so, while there were no squirrels or buzzards as I had hoped, I’m really glad I got to see one of these amazing creatures!
As I descended Corrin Hill, I decided to have a walk through an area of it I don’t know have I ever been to before, and I recorded this. Wish the sound quality was better but this is what I have:
I hope you can hear that despite the poor sound quality, because to me, it is one of my absolute favourite sounds. A song thrush singing. One of these birds lives in the Glen River park, where I do most of my bird and bug watching, and as soon as this bird starts singing, I can feel all of my problems just melting away. It’s truly one of the most wonderful sounds I’ve ever heard.
Before I left I encountered more wonderful animals.
This bird was about to take off, so sometimes when that happens I’ll literally just point the camera in the general direction and hope for the best. Any thought to getting the best angle or zooming has to go out the window, you point, you click, any more thought into it than that and the bird will be gone. Sometimes you’re lucky and a bird just stays still for about ten minutes, but that’s rare.
But now the fun was over, I would have to face, the horrible, horrible hardshoulder, that executed most of my bones without trial, and now was going to execute my remaining bones without trial.
Remember the brutally difficult hill I needed to go up to get to the Corrin Hill entrance? Well, as to the way back down, all I can say is, “WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!”
And then, “Owwwww my bones, owwwww my bones, owwwww my bones.”
But then, I got into Rathcormac, where the road was designed by someone who doesn’t hate bones. I think the person who built the road in Rathcormac got the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago, for helping to insure the safety and dignity of everyone’s bones. And it was well deserved too!
But there was still a good bit to go, over ten miles, in the hot weather. There was a bit of relief on Corrin Hill, it tends to be cooler on hills, but now I was feeling the full heat of the day. I found I needed to rest even on gentle inclines. And it was a good five years since I’d been to Rathcormac, and, misidentifying the landmarks, I realized, while baking in the heat, that I was a good five miles further from home than I thought I was. No!!!!! Would this ever end? Of course it would, but, “Would this ever end?” sounds more dramatic than, “It was inevitably going to end, but not for a while.” Leave me alone, I’m just trying to bring a bit of poetry to my writing!
But there was a lot of downhill on the way back too, so I found there were really enjoyable parts too. Where the bike is going so fast that the ground beneath you is a blur, and it feels like I’m flying. And then, sort of the opposite of what happened earlier. I realized I’d sleepwalked through about five or six miles of the journey, so I was much closer to home than I thought I was!
There’s this thing that happens on a bike, it’s called going into a flow state. The best way I can describe this is, imagine, going to sleep, but the part of your brain for cycling, that decides to turn left, turn right, slow down, speed up, and decides where you’re going, stays awake. When this happens, an hour can pass in what seems like an instant. And on this extremely hot day, I realized I would soon be home!
There was only one tough hill left, about three or so miles from my home. So I took it nice and slow, took plenty of rests, and got to the top of the hill. From here on out it was easy, and I got home.
My body was tired when I got home, but my brain was still overactive from the day’s excitement, so I felt this kind of disconnect that could only be resolved by a good night’s sleep.
And being the scorching hot day it was, all I can say is, I am so ridiculously glad I didn’t choose the Watergrasshill route this time!
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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