"Zoe, you like nature..."
Fourth day in Ireland began with a walk around Derry's city walls. Nice and sunny, so that was lovely. Save for the occasional slogan we spotted on a wall which made us feel a bit uncomfortable. Within the walls, Derry is an interesting place with cool little shops and cafes. Outside the walls, it feels like tensions between nationalists and unionists are still pretty high. Anyways, the city has a huge collection of cannon.
Plus a lovely guildhall (that got blown up and rebuilt).
And the Bogside, which you can see from the walls, has some amazing murals relating to the Troubles.
Sufficiently unsettled by the atmosphered, we headed into the walled city to find somewhere for brunch, the Travelodge being standardly overpriced for breakfast. Found a little cafe called Slim Jims which served a healthy version of a fried breakfast. Very good and very reasonably priced. Yum.
After that and a brief trip to the Post Office to send off the first of my postcards we were back in the car and toddling down the country roads into County Donegal. It's a gorgeous area. It still feels quite wild in places, like here where we went through the Barnesmore Gap. Out of nowhere, these great big hills appeared. I might have been singing Lord of the Rings music...
On through Donegal town and onto our first taste of the Wild Atlantic Way. This drive goes Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland all the way down the west coast and round to Kinsale in County Cork. First impressions: this is going to be good. This is the view from Fintragh Bay, just outside Donegal.
Yay, sunshine. And on we went, making our way out to the very westernmost point of Donegal at Malin Beg. Beautiful drive over the moors and with the sun coming out it just kept getting better.
Got checked in at the Malinbeg Hostel, run by a very friendly chap called Frank (I think...) and then headed on down to a beach he'd pointed out to us, a whole 10 minute walk from the hostel. Also beautiful. Silver Strand, it's called and with us being down quite late in the day, it was deserted save for a couple of other folks and a dog.
Played the fun game of "basking shark or rock?" and Gemma and Claire went for a paddle.
Then back up the cliff and around to another point of the headland to check out an old Martello Tower. Didn't get very close - there was a closed sheep field in the way.
And then back to the hostel for tea and a nice lazy evening in front of the peat burning fire. Oh, and rescuing a moth from the bathroom because apparently I like nature, according to Gemma.
You should have been sent a map
Morning in Malin Beg dawned slightly fresh but clear and started with a trek down to the village shop cum cafe for breakfast and to filch some WiFi. I had a delicious "small Irish" - sausage, bacon, egg, white pudding, black pudding and toast. White pudding's yummy - a bit like stuffing.
Stuffed with deliciousness, we hopped back in the car and headed just a little way down the coast, back along the narrow wiggly roads to see the Slieve League, possibly the highest sea cliffs in Europe. We decided against driving up to the top car park so had to walk the 1.5km up the hill. Not too bad and with the weather being lovely, it was quite pleasant. Some amazing views.
The cliffs themselves are awesome, but it's hard to get a sense of scale from the photos. I needed a boat or something just to show how huge they are.
And then we had ice cream for brunch before we skipped (ha) back to the car to continue the day's adventures. Not before I'd tried to find a path out to another Martello Tower and snapped a few almost-dramatic photos of Claire and Gemma. Oh yeah.
Next stop (aside from a brief one in Donegal for food) was Marble Arch Caves, back across the border in Northern Ireland, close to Lough Erne. I have very few decent photos of this, due to the low light and whatnot, but here goes.
Hurray for caves. We got to go on a very short boat ride to start with, which was cool and then on foot through the rest of the tour. There's an amazing bit where they've built a path through the river because the cave roof is too low. They call it the Moses Walk. Bit hard to see it on this shot though...
And then, again, back into the car and off in search of the night's hostel. Which proved rather more difficult than expected and included a stop at a rural pub to ask for directions and then, just as I was about to ring the hostel and ask for directions, it appeared. Apparently, I was emailed a map and directions when I booked but I can't for the life of me find it. Must have gone into my junk folder.
Did my first hand wash. The amount of sand that came out of Claire and Gemma's socks was ridiculous. Look what it did to my washing water!
Ugh.
It's still raining
It rained all night. It was still raining in the morning when we left the hostel and on Craig the hostel owner's advice, headed a few km down the road to visit the Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery. Which we didn't end up visiting because it was still raining. I didn't even manage to get any photos of the tomb I could see from the car because it was just too wet.
So we headed off towards Westport instead, where we stopped for an early lunch and some food supplies. Still raining. My walking boots leaked.
From Westport, we headed out towards Achill Island, on the advice of an Irish guy Gemma and I met in Iceland. It rained all the way there, puddles had reached right the way across the road and it was still raining when we got there.
We did a run to the souvenir shop for postcards and then got back in the car, bored and slightly damp and continued our drive back through Westport and on to Connemara. Which was sort of pretty in a damp and soggy sort of way. Managed to grab a few shots out of the window, which resulted in me and the camera getting wet. Again.
We ran over a frog by accident near Kylemore Abbey.
Early arrival at the hostel in Letterfrack meant an evening of boredom in which I resumed my Spanish lessons, wrote some postcards and hoped that the next day would be better. Oh yay. All the joy.
Previous part: Dublin-Belfast-Derry/Londonderry
Next part: Connemara-Galway-Tralee-Dingle
Hostels
Malin Beg, Co. Donegal: Malinbeg Hostel
Lough Arrow, Co. Sligo: ArrowRock Lodge
Letterfrack, Co. Galway: The Bard's Den
Things to do
Derry City Walls, Derry-Londonderry (free)
Slieve League, Co. Donegal (free)
Marble Arch Caves, Fermanagh (£8.75)
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