Ballacolla Rally and MZRC AGM 2006

  I went to the Ballacolla Rally in Ireland last month. I hadn’t been before and, although it isn’t really that far (c.210 miles for me) the ferry journey adds a lot to the trip, and makes it feel more of an adventure. The ride to Troon and the ferry were uneventful enough, and I was soon heading out of Larne on my way to the rally.

  Near Belfast there were dire warnings of delays due to road works on the motorway through the city, so I followed the very long detour to avoid them. Eventually I got back onto the road south and things went OK until about 20 miles north of Newry where the traffic started slowing, eventually grinding to a halt then getting up to 20 mph for short stretches. This carried on until Newry, where the traffic on the bypass was at less than walking speed. I had tried my best to filter through the traffic and eventually got to the front of the queue on the bypass. The problem was being caused by two very long and slow lorries carrying huge steel constructions, which requires all traffic to stop while they navigated roundabouts, sometimes in the wrong direction. I eventually got past them and headed southward.

  Once across the border the road quickly becomes a very new, fast, and quiet motorway, so I could keep up a reasonable pace stopped only by a toll plaza near Drogheda. I was particularly impressed by the bridge over the River Boyne, bridges need only be functional, but it’s good to see the engineers chose to design an attractive one. I soon got to Dublin where the traffic started getting very heavy, especially around the toll plaza on the bypass. It was about 4pm by now so I got caught in all the traffic leaving the city, and it was very heavy until I turned off at Naas for money and petrol. Leaving Naas I failed to find the right road, so ended up on a rather long, but scenic, detour.

  Eventually I found Ballacolla, and found the signs for the farm hostel. When I arrived I worked out that the 188 miles from Larne had taken 6 hours! Obviously there’s nothing I could do about the traffic hold-ups, but things weren’t made any easier by my GPS system being almost useless due to Garmin not mapping Ireland properly.

  The rally itself was very good and I’ll not bother with a boring ‘blow by blow’ account, just a list of the various happenings: Food, drink, chat, demonstrations of wheel building and circus skills, a raffle, a barbeque, awards, singing, more drinking, tales of daring-do, and lots more beside. It rained all day Saturday and few left the hostel, there was so much to do. This is what rallies should be like, but aren’t for a fairly simple reason – there are too many whingers in Britain. At Ballacolla you pay 20 Euro and that covers all your food, tea and coffee for the weekend. Imagine doing that in Britain? We’d have folk either force feeding themselves, ‘because I’ve paid for it’, or arguing for a discount because they don’t take sugar in their tea. The Irish can organise a very successful rally and we’d organise Whingefest 2006.

  All too soon it was Sunday morning and after numerous photos and goodbyes, it was back homeward. It was a fairly straightforward run until I approached Dublin where the traffic became very heavy, partly due to a horse racing meeting at The Curragh and the All-Ireland Gaelic Football final at Croke Park, and partly because all capital cities are busy, so what did I expect? Once past Dublin the road was fairly clear and I caught up with Mike just before Drogheda. We travelled up to Larne, stopping at Dundalk for petrol and food, then drove through Belfast where the roadworks weren’t too bad, possibly because it was a Sunday. We soon arrived in Larne and headed to the boat, once again missing the delights of ‘The Fleshpots of Larne’ - see report of last year’s AGM for details.

  On behalf of those that went to the rally I’d like to thank Jim, Catherine and the others for their welcome and all the hard work they put in to ensure this rally was a success. Already I’ve ‘recruited’ two more people for next year’s rally, and if you’ve never been I’d encourage you all to go. Just remember – no whinging!!

  Rally is held at the Farren Farm Hostel - http://www.farmhostel.com/

Ballacolla Rally - No, they didn't all come on the Skorpions!

  Next trip was the short trip down to the AGM at Bellingham. As it’s only 150 miles and Kathleen didn’t want to camp, we just went down for the day. We had planned on taking a scenic route there and a more direct route back, but this fell apart at Carnwath where the road was closed and we went onto a diversion. Unfortunately, the diversion signs stopped and we were lost. I got to a junction and made a random decision on which way to go. I rode on for a bit hoping to find a petrol station (I was on reserve and had planned on getting petrol at Carnwath), and too late found that I was on the A70 towards Edinburgh.

  I got petrol and headed round the Edinburgh bypass and south to the AGM. This detour had added about 50 miles to the journey and I was lucky not to run out of petrol. And before you ask, guess who said, “I’ll not bother taking the GPS, I know where I’m going”, before leaving the house?

  The AGM was a great success, I’ll not bore you with details as no doubt Mike will have a report elsewhere, but there was a very good turnout (about 130), good weather, and it was good to meet people I hadn’t seen for a long time. We headed home the plan being to ride up to Edinburgh, then take the motorway to Glasgow, as it would get dark before we were home. The first part was OK, but we ran into some mist near Dalkeith, but not enough to cause problems. However, on the M8 just after Livingstone the mist turned to dense fog, which brought the safe speed down to about 40, then about 30 past Harthill. Ever wished you had a rear fog light? I did and might fit one soon. The fog cleared by about Airdrie and the rest of the journey home was easy enough. Here’s looking forward to next year’s AGM in Builth Wells.

  Details of the MZ Riders Club at http://www.mzridersclub.co.uk Rally was held at The Brown Rigg Caravan & Camping Park, Bellingham, Northumberland http://www.northumberlandcaravanparks.com