Its amazing what you find when your out on the old interweb, I discovered Ireland Eco Tours mentioned on these three websites by chance when out surfing. Check out what they had to say below:

http://www.worldtravelguide.net/feature/56/index/Ecotourism-in-Ireland.html

http://www.topiccraze.com/topic?topic=ecotouring

http://www.hippyshopper.com/2007/10/ecotourism_holi.html

Well I have finally got round to getting my membership with STI (Sustainable Travel International) sorted out. It has been on my to do list for a while now. Within the past few months I had the opportunity to meet and work with Mr Peter Krahenbuhl the Co.Founder and Vice President of STI. Peter has helped Ireland Eco Tours with product development and I must say it was a great advantage to have his expertise at hand. I will now have a listing on STI Eco Directory amongst other benefits. For more info then go to www.sustainabletravelinternational.org

Myself and pete where out on the bikes today as it was a beautiful afternoon in the Donegal/Fermanagh region. Its great to see some sun.....finally and we must take advantage of it when its here!! Well the bike ride was going good until we came across the mess you can see in the pictures. Fly-tipping as it is known in this country, whereby members of the general public take it upon themselves to take lots of their rubbish into our forests and scenic areas and dump it, and as if that wasn't bad enough they also burn it releasing harmful gases into the environment!!! We still have such a long way to go on the Island of Ireland to get people to follow the "Leave No Trace" ethos!! Well we tried not to let this act of environmental vandalism spoil our day on the bikes and as you can see from the other photos we seen some beautiful unspoiled scenery as well.

I had the lads from Co.Down or was it Co.Tyrone or maybe Co.Armagh!! Out for an afternoon of mountain biking. We went for a spin on saturday afternoon and thankfully Fermanagh and Donegal did me proud because the weather was fantastic for our 15mile ride. The lads all done well, especially since there were quite a few hills involved and some of them hadnt been on a bike in over 2 years!! But of course about 3/4 the way through it was time for refreshment so we stopped at the Travellers Rest (approprately named) Cashelard, and the lads got the Guinness in, I stuck with the water!! After the rest we hit the road again for a scenic ride up past Lough Unshin and then round past Breesy Hill and the final leg of our spin was all downhill everyone was glad to hear. We got back to Belleek and the town was shrouded in sun. We got the bikes and ourselves on the big green bus and I left the lads back up to Ederney and to the Glendarragh Valley Inn where they were spending the nite. A successful day tour by all accounts.

Here is a picture of the group I had for a Leave No Trace awareness session last week. we started with presentation and open discussion in the Organic centre in Rossinver Co.Leitrim, and then we hoped on the big green Bio-bus and drove to a beautiful little walk along the Glenaniff river to fowley's falls where we talked more about the 7 principles of leave no trace. It was a grand day and i think we all learned something new.

Just got my new website up and running and now have my lovely new blog aswell!!