A few years back I had reason to undertake a drive to Cork. At that time this involved travelling on poorly lit roads that twisted and turned and meandered through every village and hamlet along the way resulting in a projected four-hour travel time taking closer to five in reality.
While the journey was a rarity for me it was one that was undertaken by many all the time. Travelling salesmen, couriers and HGV drivers would make the same trip everyday (along with both Shane and Neil as they came up to visit the real capital). Nowadays of course it is much easier; the final section of the Dublin - Cork motorway was opened in 2010, meaning a drive that would have previously taken upwards of four hours can now be completed in a little over two.
Built via Public Private Partnerships (that's what the PPP bit on the signs means) there are of course tolls to be paid, but for drivers more accustomed to the fees charged on the roads around Dublin the €1.80 charge is refreshingly good value and the roads, while interminably dull, do allow you to arrive at your location feeling refreshed and ready for the day's work ahead.
Which is why, upon entering Cork, we quickly left it.
Had the CompleteCar.ie team been travelling salesmen from before the dawn of the motorway we could expect to spend a minimum of nine hours on the road doing just a Dublin to Cork return trip. So in 2013 how far could we get in the same time period?
To find out we turned off the motorway - or at least the petrol powered car in our mini-convoy did. As a way to cover large distances motorways are great, but as a way to bypass a major urban area, not always so. With everyone using the motorway to avoid Cork, actually going through the city ended up being quicker.
After Cork it was time to get back onto the national roads that the motorway network has been designed to bypass. The N20 from Cork to Limerick is much like the roads that would have been used over the years as it wound its way through Mallow, Charleville and Buttevant, all slowing our pace through town and rarely speeding up out of it due to long lines of traffic. Never has the M18 outside Limerick been such a welcome sight as our convoy motored along towards Galway before looping around for the return leg to Dublin via the M6 motorway.
Before hitting the M6 we did take in a smaller regional (or R) road just so we could complete our byway and highway full house. These roads, while generally less travelled than national, are also invariably unlit and somewhat neglected by county councils and so feature an interesting mix of potholes and broken surfaces. At night, in torrential rain it was exactly the kind of road that had us praying for the big blue signs that would signify it was time to set the cruise control, relax and clock off the miles before the finish line in Dublin.
Of course we did not stop off along our trip to make an sales (the only stops were for picking up provisions and 'calls of nature'), but in the nine hours that it would have previously taken to do a Dublin to Cork round trip the team had done Dublin - Cork - Limerick - Galway - Dublin, a distance of 678 kilometres. Something to think about the next time you give out about being stuck in traffic on the M50 - it was much worse beforehand!
2013 road trip part one: best laid plans