Bikepacking Through a Quarter Life Crisis - Ireland Part 1

July-August 2025

Tears streamed down my windswept face as I cycled along the old military road through the Wicklow Mountains. I couldn’t explain the emotion overtaking me - perhaps it was gratitude, pain, awe, disappointment, hope… all of it colliding at once. The tears became sobs as the floodgates finally opened. This trip was an escape from my reality, a desperate search for answers when I could no longer see the road ahead. When I finally gathered myself, I looked around and realised I was alone - completely alone.

Ireland had always fascinated me. In my mind, it was a magical land of rolling green hills, gushing streams, and Gerard Butlers wandering narrow streets. I had always dreamed of going there myself; apparently, all it took was a full-blown quarter-life crisis to make it happen.

I found myself facing uncertainty and deep disappointment. My life didn’t look the way I thought it would by now, and I was spiralling. So I booked the ticket. After reading stories of people like Charlie Walker, who braved unknown lands on two wheels, I decided on bike touring.

Now, I am by no means a cyclist. I generally only cycle if I’m injured and can’t run - or if I’m in the Drakensberg. But I am nothing if not blindly confident in my athletic abilities. I emailed the first bike shop that appeared in my Google search and booked a bike.

I spent the following months consumed with plotting routes on Google Maps and daydreaming about finally being there, fully aware that I would probably abandon the plans at the last minute anyway. In true Robyn fashion, I left sorting out Euros until the final hour. My euro card arrived on the morning of my departure. Phew. Close one.

After recovering from the shock of how expensive… well, everything in Ireland was, I took a quick bus ride, made my way to the bike shop, and set off on a bike I deemed suitable purely because I liked the colour and the stickers on the frame.

Navigating my way out of Dublin was stressful, to say the least. The bike lanes made the experience far safer, but it was still unfamiliar territory for me. I stopped at a small supermarket for bananas, water, and a can of Pringles - balance - and then I started to climb… and climb… and climb.

I stopped at the first pub I came across, “Johnny Fox’s,” for my first-ever Guinness. After making a fool of myself by drinking it while it was still foamy, I carried on to Knockree Hostel, my home for the night.

It was my first time staying in a hostel. I had severely underestimated the food situation, so dinner consisted of Pringles and black coffee that I filtered through an emptied tea bag I had DIY-ed myself. My Terbodore coffee was the only food item I had brought from South Africa, but I had forgotten my silicone filter at the bike shop in my bag.

The sun only set after 10 p.m., so I decided to go for a walk through the nearby forest. I had to pinch myself when the realisation hit me: I was in Ireland, travelling solo on a bike. How exciting.

The next morning, I stopped for breakfast at a coffee shop called The Armory at the Glencree Peace Centre. The large stone walls held memories of times long past. From there, I faced a fair amount of climbing along the old military road through rolling hills scattered with pink, purple, and yellow flowers. The weather was dreary and grey, but I wasn’t going to let that dampen my mood.

Eventually, I was rewarded with a long, relatively flat stretch. It was there that emotion overtook me. I was living my dream. It was beautiful, and yet somehow I still felt empty. I had changed my geography, but I was still Robyn - carrying the same anxieties and pain as before.

I have always enjoyed solitude. I crave it. I have no problem doing things alone; in fact, I find it pushes me out of my comfort zone, forcing me to speak to people I otherwise never would have met. I also love not having to run every decision past someone else. I crave freedom and spontaneity, and I never wanted to be with someone simply to cure loneliness, but rather to build a beautiful partnership for the right reasons.

But recently, solitude had started to feel different. What I once loved was slowly morphing into something haunting and hollow.

I tend to use adventure as an escape - a way to gain perspective, particularly in the mountains. It may not be the most mature way to deal with pain, but there are certainly worse coping mechanisms, and generally, it works. At the time, I was facing a turning point in my life - a lifequake, you could say. I have a deep fear of taking the wrong turn and living with endless what ifs. It is a constant tug-of-war between trusting God’s plan and taking matters into my own hands.

Every year seemed to move faster than the last, and I felt as though I was running out of time. I never wanted to waste my youth.

Quotes I once found inspiring - Fear most the unlived life (Atticus), The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it (Henry David Thoreau), and Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage (Anaïs Nin) - had begun to stir anxiety instead. They sat handwritten in a notebook beside my bed, no longer comforting but confronting.

Was I settling? Should I be doing more? Had I become complacent?

I would plead with God, desperate for some sign that I was on the right path, that I wasn’t missing what He had planned for me.

And then came the tipping point.

The reason I thought God had placed me in this season… wasn’t. Cue spiral.

It left me questioning my judgement, my value, and worst of all, God’s good plan for my life. My head knew God is good, and that His “no” is often because He has a better “yes,” but my heart ached and my spirit felt heavy.

As I cruised effortlessly down the narrow asphalt roads, I felt the full weight of my sorrow and isolation. My little breakdown probably lasted all of two minutes before I pulled myself together and carried on.

Soon, I reached Sally Gap and then the P.S. I Love You bridge - sadly with no Gerard Butler waiting there. This was followed by a climb past the Guinness Lake, where I felt every kilogram of the loaded bike as I took frequent rest stops, soaking in the scenery along the way.

Eventually, I was rewarded with the most glorious descent into Glendalough, a quaint tourist town filled with beautiful lakes and historical landmarks. I stopped for a coffee and briefly considered staying there for the night, but the day was still young. I decided instead to continue on to Glenmalure, just over the hill.

That was when I had what I can only describe as a Bethlehem incident.

A local wedding was taking place that night, and every bit of accommodation was booked. There was, quite literally, no room at the inn. I would have to continue on to Tinahely.

As it began to get late, I called ahead to book a room at an Airbnb when I realised my small bag containing all my money was missing.

Panic.

Where could it be?

I found the number for the coffee shop in Glendalough, and thankfully they had my bag… 30 kilometres back. Relief and irritation hit simultaneously. Ag no.

Knowing Glenmalure was no longer an option for the night, I hitchhiked back to the last town - whose name I cannot remember - where I managed to track down the one and only taxi driver willing to take me back to Glendalough. By then it was dark, and after several close calls with cars during the day, I had no intention of cycling those roads again at night.

While waiting, I sat in a tiny local establishment that was half pub, half grocery store. The boy serving behind the bar looked far too young to be working in a pub, but I imagined employment opportunities were limited in a town that small.

I ended up chatting with a group of old men who I suspect were daily regulars. We spoke about South Africa, Ireland, and life in general.

The taxi driver arrived in a thoroughly foul mood. Apparently, I hadn’t answered her calls when she was outside the pub - despite the fact that I never received them, and she could easily have walked five steps inside to find me. She became even more irritated when she saw I had a bike, although her massive combi easily swallowed it whole.

Still, before long, I had managed to charm her into conversation, and she dropped me at the Glendalough Hostel.

While trying to reassemble all my bags onto the bike, I promptly toppled over and scraped my ankle. I was deeply grateful that nobody had witnessed it.

Until I walked into the hostel and an Italian man burst out laughing, informing me he had seen the entire thing on the security camera. Fantastic.

The next morning, I returned to the coffee shop as soon as it opened and retrieved my bag. I decided that perhaps I was meant to spend more time there, so I stayed for the day and postponed deciding what to do next until tomorrow.

I wandered until I found the lakes, took a dip in the freezing water, and then followed a trail through the ruins of an old mining village until I eventually reached the mountaintop. The paths were crowded with city dwellers escaping for a weekend in nature.

I crossed a small bridge over the river, where I had an unexpected encounter with a stag. He emerged from behind a rock barely ten metres away, and for a moment we stood in complete silence, simply staring at one another. The spell was broken when a loud group of women approached along the trail, causing him to dart away into the wilderness. Still, I was grateful for that brief moment where it felt like it was just the two of us.

The hike had been entirely unexpected and utterly marvellous. It was more than worth staying for.

That night, I wrestled with the decision of whether to continue cycling or abandon the bike altogether and rely on buses and public transport so I could cover more ground. My time in Ireland suddenly felt painfully short compared to everything I still wanted to see.

I called my childhood friend Mitch, who would be joining me for the second leg of the journey and was living near Dublin at the time. Together, we decided that I should return to Dublin and that we would figure out a new plan from there. Honestly, I felt relieved by the decision.

I picked up a bus timetable brochure from the visitor centre and saw there was a bus to Dublin at 9:45 a.m. Since I had time to spare, I treated myself to a soft serve and a coffee before making my way to the bus stop.

The brochure was wrong.

As I arrived at 9:10, my bus was already pulling out of the parking lot, leaving me standing there in disbelief. I was unimpressed, to say the least.

There would not be another bus capable of taking my bike until 5 p.m. I sat sulking for about thirty minutes before discovering there were more frequent buses departing from Ashford, a town roughly twenty kilometres away.

So, I started cycling there instead.

And honestly, I’m so glad things turned out that way because the route was beautiful - quiet roads, green countryside, and the kind of scenery that makes you stop every few kilometres just to take it all in. The sun was shining and my earlier disappointment was forgotten.

I caught the first bus from Ashford to Dublin, where I returned my bike to the shop and collected the rest of my belongings.

Mitch and I arranged to meet on the famous Grafton Street. After days spent in mountains and tiny villages, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. I parked myself outside Victoria’s Secret and people-watched while waiting for him to find me.

It was such a treat to reunite with him and reconnect properly. We had grown up together but hadn’t seen much of each other since primary school.

I suspect he may have reconsidered his decision to travel with me when we were sitting on a park bench and I allowed my intrusive thoughts to win. A pigeon wandered past us, and before thinking twice, I grabbed it just to see if I could.

To my surprise, Dublin pigeons are apparently so overweight and unbothered that it barely reacted to being snatched mid-lunch by a random tourist.

We grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant before navigating the busy streets and crowded buses with my bags - now overloaded with both my belongings and a few things I had brought over from South Africa for Mitch.

That evening, we had dinner at the local pub in Lucan, near where Mitch lived, catching up on life while enthusiastically participating in the Irish tradition of beer drinking.

The following day, we explored Dublin properly. We visited the Viking Museum, St Patrick’s Cathedral, and my personal favourite - the art museum. I loved wandering through the city, soaking up the history and atmosphere.

I also picked up a few items of clothing to suit the sudden change in plans so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the trip permanently dressed in cycling gear. Although Dublin was interesting, I was ready to get out of the city and get back to exploring the countryside.

Mitch was an absolute champion about the abrupt pivot in itinerary and was completely open to figuring things out as we went. Together, we started planning the next phase of the adventure.

That night, we decided that the most cost-effective - and probably most sensible option was to hire a small car and stay in hostels along the way.

The plan was simple: leave early the next morning and drive the Wild Atlantic Way up the west coast of Ireland. I was hopeful and stoked to have some company for the next leg of the journey.

Stay tuned for more.

When she arrived at the cliff in the valley, there was no room in her soul for fear, for she knew that God had brought her this far and he would still be with her here. And though she was waiting to see what miraculous thing He would do, she never let go of His highwind whispers “I know the plans I have for you”. ~ Morgan Harper Nichols ~