Cliffs of Moher today

Last time I was there (a few years ago now, pre covid) I got followed around the car park by an ugly female kid who was rattling a plastic cup at me and quite impolitely asking for money. I kept refusing until she must have heard ‘go away and leave me alone’ enough times.

I later saw her go to a large and very new looking Mercedes where she deposited the contents of her cup with an adult in the car and turned again to seek more tourists.
 
1/10.
I picture of 3 coaches and 1 picture of the cliffs.
Come on, you can do better trip reports than that shirley? :nenau :D
 
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Nice pics. Are you a tourist or driving the coach @JJH?

I could see myself driving a Paddywagon coach part time as I slide towards retirement.
 
Udders said:
1/10.
I picture of 3 coaches and 1 picture of the cliffs.
Come on, you can do better trip reports than that shirley? :nenau :D
Click to expand...
Ahem I’m there 2 or 3 times a week. I drive the busses. I stay away from the bigger buses and usually drive a sprinter or higer which is a 40 seat Chinese bus. We have a fairly diverse fleet with 9 seats up to 64. I haven’t bothered with the try axle. There are e class mercs and vianio as well. I don’t have a small PSV so I don’t drive them. The weather was amazing yesterday 18.5c. I’ve been driving on and off since 2005. Part time while I was in the prison service. I usually do a 3 day week. JJH
 
JJH said:
Ahem I’m there 2 or 3 times a week. I drive the busses. I stay away from the bigger buses and usually drive a sprinter or higer which is a 40 seat Chinese bus. We have a fairly diverse fleet with 9 seats up to 64. I haven’t bothered with the try axle. There are e class mercs and vianio as well. I don’t have a small PSV so I don’t drive them. The weather was amazing yesterday 18.5c. I’ve been driving on and off since 2005. Part time while I was in the prison service. I usually do a 3 day week. JJH
Click to expand...
A trip report would be a boring account of me loading pax and then my commentary. Oh yes the people who come back late at the various stops. None yesterday. JJH
 
JJH said:
Ahem I’m there 2 or 3 times a week. I drive the busses. I stay away from the bigger buses and usually drive a sprinter or higer which is a 40 seat Chinese bus. We have a fairly diverse fleet with 9 seats up to 64. I haven’t bothered with the try axle. There are e class mercs and vianio as well. I don’t have a small PSV so I don’t drive them. The weather was amazing yesterday 18.5c. I’ve been driving on and off since 2005. Part time while I was in the prison service. I usually do a 3 day week. JJH
Click to expand...
Even less of an excuse then!
Let’s have some pics of your coach & more cliff shots! :thumb2
 
Trip report Wednesday 16th October. Woke up as usual just before the alarm clock. Silenced same before it woke Eileen. Quick wash cup of decaf ( I’ll get enough caffeine during the day). Slight rain noting significant. My chosen outer wear for today are a pair of Atlantis trousers and my alpinestars Honda motorcycle jacket. Not goretex but some other membrane. Drytex or something. My trusty Daytona boots that I have worn for a long time with the lining on the left heel braking down pinching me as I walk. Not to mind they are waterproof. BMW carbon system 7 helmet to complete the clothing and not really matching my v85 guardia O’Donnell or whatever it is. In the same way as tyre pressure control doesn’t really control the pressure (it controls you) is my system 7 carbon really carbon? Unanswered questions not really bothering me I head out to the garage where my bike is theatterd to the ground anchor. That beautiful noise as the motor whirrs into life like no other bike I’ve owned. Not the biggest or most powerful machine I’ve ever had but a great pleasure to ride the 47 km to where my assigned Elegent Irish Tour sprinter is waiting with 19 vacient seats for my assigned 15 pax for today. More to come. JJH
 
As I ride along I wonder about replacing my gear because Brexet has messed up my supply chain. My trusty fellow tossers who have been a reliable source of good riding gear including my Rukka gloves have been eliminated due to the Irish Government refusing to follow the lead of our nearest and dearest neighbours and steadfastly remain in the EU. I had a little smuggling path which has sadly come to an abrupt halt. Anyway not to worry. I’m not threadbare yet.
I arrive at the yard shed my bike gear to reveal my attire for today jeans and my elegant Irish branded tee shirt with my Paddywagon fleece and my Clarks gortex boots again another tosser castoff. I have them about 3 years and despite being soaked in diesel kerosene petrol they’re still doing their previous owner proud. All right for £25.
I insert my tacho card set it to doing other work and do my checks. Depart at 6:15 to my first pickup at the intercontinental hotel in ballsbridge. 7 am is the designated time and I arrive at 6:52 pax waiting. Brilliant 6 dancers from Arazona. They were in a competition at Ashbourne which they won. Lovely engaging people who we had a lively chitchat with on the way to the Shelbourne hotel where I collected 1 young lady from New York. Dana. Could I resist? All Kinds of Everything was soon blasting out of the PA our Eurovision winner from 1970. Easyist way to shelbourne is down Kildare st and reverse into a laneway back up and left and hotel is on left. Dana proves to be great crack. More coming JJH
 
So next stop was the merrion hotel just up a bit and round the corner. Waiting at lights my phone rings. Hands free of course it’s the office. I hate them. Interfering busybodies. 4pax at merrion did u forget them? Pickup time is 7:10. It’s 7:12 according to the display on radio. FUCK OFF. Have people nothing better to do. At this stage I was at pick up point. I’m sure they heard me. Other pax certainly did. Pickups at Gresham and weston went as planned and we were heading down the quays at 7:25 which is 5 minutes early.
I introduce my self give a rough rundown of the way the day is going to go. Tell them about seatbelts. I explain that it’s the law to wear seatbelts in Ireland but any adults not wearing seatbelts should guide their tradgrectory in the unlikely event of an accident so as not to take my head off as they exit the windscreen. Anybody eating any sweets chocolate candy cake of any description must share with the driver. If you have a complaint please submit in writing on a €5 note in triplicate. And so on. We turn left on wood quay by the civic offices (I worked on the construction of)up the hill at Christ Church Cathedral. Turn right towards the libertys. Left in Inchchore towards Bluebell and the Naas road. Over the m50 and after junction 5 the traffic begins to thin out a bit. Why do people hog the middle lane? It’s an often broached topic but when they’re doing 95 and your restricted to 100 in brings a new meaning to the problem of overtaking. It’s so tempting to undertake. It’s annoying to watch someone join the motorway and take up a position in lane 2 for no reason at all. So do 120 or 110 but 95 is just stupid. Explain about the service area known as the Barack Obama. It’s a good stop for us coach drivers. Nice and clean and the staff are very friendly and service is efficient and most importantly fast. More on way. JJH
 
So we have 15 minutes at the Barack. After 20 there’s no sign of the 4 merrion boarders. Eventually they appear. Lady asks to speak to me. Their from a country south it the boarder on the North American continent. She wants to know why we stopped at the service place as we should be in a town. Now it doesn’t take much to get me going but it’s a long day I decide to see if I can sort it out. I take a breath deeply and ask her to explain what I had done wrong. I went onto the website to see if I had missed something the last 50 times I’ve done the tour. Next stop Bunratty castle. Now the web says we do that on the way back but the last admission is around 4 pm and we could miss it so I do it on the way. That’s the only deviation from the schedule. They all get back on the bus and off we go. I do my usual old shite. Anyone from Canada I tell them that’s North America without the bullshit. Especially if there’s actually Americans on board which there usually is. New Zealand? I pretend that I think it’s another Australian teoratory. And so on. I give a 5 minute talk about our Monastic past which I stretch to an hour. That gets us to Bunratty castle where we stay for an hour. More to follow. JJH
 
Bunratty is enjoyed without incident and off we go to the Cliffs of Moher. Another hour of history King Henry no. 8 usually goes down for a few minutes as we talk about the dissolution of the monastery’s. Yes his influence was felt in parts of Ireland. His daughter Elizabeth had a bigger role here with the first plantation of Ireland. Her half sister Mary got the bloody tag. I can’t fathom how it didn’t land on lizzys head too. Maybe it was the burning at the stake that got it for Mary. Over 300 in five years. Just for picking the wrong religion. Many weren’t allowed to change. Arrive at the cliffs 8 minutes before my time. No biggie. Weather is wonderful and that makes my job so easy. Off they trot and I’m having my 2nd coffee of the day. 2:30 and everyone is back and hungry. Down the road we go to the Paddywagon owned restaurant Frantic Chef. You may ask why does paddywagon own a restaurant? Well it’s quite simple. Although most restaurants around the area liked to see us coming with our captives sorry i mean pax sometimes it didn’t work out. Pax wouldn’t be happy neither would us drivers. Boss got fed up listening to us bitching so he bought a restaurant which is geared to feeding 64 pax in 45 minutes. It’s been such a success that other bus companies are looking for slots to feed their pax. 15 happy fed passengers back on bus in 50 minutes. JJH
 
All the I are dotted and Ts crossed and we are essentially making our way east north east towards Dublin where I have to in unload the passengers in the reverse of loading. The intercontinental hotel is out of the way but I discovered that the intercontinental and merrion pax were staying near St Patrick’s Cathedral so I came back along James st right into Francis st and 10 passengers happily got off much nearer their hotels. 2 more drops and straight back out the Naas Rd towards Rathole where the depot is. Fill with diesel adblue not required park bus onto bike home about 21:45. Off now til Monday JJH
 
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