Ireland: Derry/Londonderry-Donegal-Sligo-Connemara

Back so soon? If you missed the first part of this recap of my trip to Ireland, you can find it HERE. You can find the third part HERE.

"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) 

Ireland: Dublin-Belfast-Derry/Londonderry

This is part 1 my posts about an Ireland road trip. You can find part 2 HERE.

Just back from my two week trip to Ireland. Here goes with the first of the recaps!

Meteor is a type of pizza...

Well, it started with the standard trip through the airport. Gemma got stopped at security to be scanned for bomb residue or something - obviously looked suspicious... Then we spotted what we think might have been part of the Team GB Para-Cycling team in Costa.

Anyway, the flight was uneventful and short and then a short wait for Claire coming in from Birmingham. Gemma was amused that the mobile network she'd picked up was called Meteor. Mostly because it's a type of pizza from Dominoes. And then off to the hostel.

Which proved harder to find than expected. Got to the right bus stop and then we got stuck. Found it in the end. Isaacs Hostel is tucked down a little side street near the city centre and it's a pretty great hostel. Reasonably sized rooms, clean facilities and free breakfast and WiFi. Advice: if at all possible, avoid the rooms at the front of the hostel because the train line passes right outside and can be quite loud, as we discovered on our first night.

There was no toucan...

Our first real day in Ireland began with the obligatory raid on the free breakfast. Then it was off into the city for some exploration. First stop, Trinity College and its famous library to see the Book of Kells. Great little exhibition, slightly glitchy audio guide. The Book itself was beautiful, but photography wasn't allowed.

Almost better was the Long Room of the Library and this I do have pictures of. In my dreams, I have a library like this. So beautiful.

After spending a while just gawping at the gorgeous bookshelves and that amazing ceiling, we headed off again and took a stroll through a park while we waited for the museums to open, it being a Sunday and the museums not opening till 2pm. Pretty, isn't it?

Almost as awesome as the museums, in fact. We started with the National Museum of Archaeology and History, which mostly involved me making a beeline for the bog bodies. I'm fascinated by these things. Not sure Claire and Gemma were quite so enchanted. Something slightly creepy about them, isn't there?

Look at the perfectly preserved fingers!

Oh yeah. Anyways, having creeped Gemma and Claire out with the crispy critters we moved on to the National Museum of Natural History. This is laid out like a traditional museum, all glass cases full of stuffed animals. It's known as the Dead Zoo. Got some amazing glass models of invertebrates though. Very cool.

Misleading sign outside suggested there was a toucan somewhere in the museum. We did not find it.

And then it was back to the hostel for tea and a delightful game of what we came to call Wall Pool. Seriously, look how close the walls are to the table. Made for an interesting game...

Her name is D

Second full day in Ireland and it was time to pick up the car. A little Micra, bit beat up and pointed out to us by the guy at the counter as "She's out there". So she had to be female and given that the only letter on her reg plate was a D, that had to be her name.

Gemma took first shift at the wheel and drove us up to the Hill of Tara, an Iron Age complex of ringforts and other earthworks which used to be the seat of the High-Kings of Ireland. Some awesome little things, like this carving just inside the Mound of the Hostages.

And this is the Stone of Destiny. Yes, it's supposed to be a bit phallic. There's a lot of fertility ideas tied up with the High-Kings.

After that it was on the Bru na Boinne, the World Heritage site which takes in the huge passage tombs complexes at Newgrange and Knowth. Personally, I found Knowth the more impressive of the two. So pretty.

Newgrange is also pretty, but we weren't allowed to take photos inside the passages.

And then onwards across the border into Northern Ireland which caused some delightful issues because our speedometer was only in km/h and not mph. Resulted in me doing some super quick calculations and having to tell Claire how fast she was allowed to go every time the speed limit changed.

We didn't really do any exploration in Belfast. Got to the hostel, nipped to the supermarket, cooked tea and went for a drive up to Cave Hill to have a look out at the city in the night. Nah, not for us. I suspect Belfast's actually got some cool places to explore, but we were only there overnight.

Don't call us Southerners

Third full day into the trip meant a drive up through County Antrim to the north coast. We opted for the coast road, which I think must be stunning in the sunshine. Still pretty cool in the damp, but we didn't stop for many photos.

First stop was Carrick-a-Rede and its rope bridge. Seriously cool and not nearly as wobbly as I expected. In fact, I was quite tempted to jump on it and see how much it wibbled. Nice chatty staff, although one of them on finding that we were English asked if we were from Essex. Not good - we're northerners, not southerners. He won't be making that mistake again.

Spent some time on the island the bridge links to, enjoying the sunshine and the view.

And then off further along the coast to visit the world famous Giant's Causeway. Stunning place, every bit as good as the photos (if a little busier). The admission includes a guided tour and an audio guide if you want it. We took the guided tour and got to spend 45 minutes or so being regaled with stories of the giant Finn McCool who built the causeway to pick a fight with another giant in Scotland. Great fun. Here's Finn's boot as an indicator of his size.

And here's the Causeway itself. Absolutely amazing.

It's volcanic, actually - used to fill most of the valley but obviously over time it's been eroded down to what you can see today.

And then we were off again to spend the night in Derry-Londonderry. Of which you can read more in the next post!

Hostels:
Dublin: Isaacs Hostel
Belfast: Global Village

Things to Do:
National Museum of Ireland, Dublin (admission free)
Hill of Tara, Co. Meath (admission free)
Bru na Boinne World Heritage site, Co. Meath (€11 for both sites)
Carrick-a-Rede, Co. Antrim (£5.90)
Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim (£9)