Our next adventure will be a driving tour of Ireland. This is the tentative route we are planning. Two weeks and a few days. 700+ miles, give or take.
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Look out, Ireland! Here we come!
We’re about to leave for our trip to Ireland. We’re very excited. Our first driving tour since the time we drove across the U.K. back in 2003. Cynthia may regret giving the OK on this choice. She already doesn’t like my driving here in the USA.
Arrival in Ireland
We made it to Ireland safe and sound. We picked up the car, a shiny BMW 3 Series, and made our way to Dundalk to check in to the Glenngatt House B&B. We were pretty tired and took a short nap before getting up and finding some dinner.
Our dinner was at a place called The Left Bank and the food was fantastic, especially the baked mushrooms with bacon and cheese.
We went back to the B&B and even though it was only 7:00 pm local time. we decided to go ahead and go to sleep as we were quite exhausted.
Sometime around 2:00 am Cynthia woke me up and she was crying. She had to get up and go to the bathroom and somehow managed to knock my glasses off of the table and then step on them…
I reassured her that it was no big deal as I always carry a spare pair just in case of such emergencies. She was able to calm down and we both went back to sleep.
We’re headed to Portballintrae today, via the coast highway. Sky is overcast and rainy but our spirits are high.
A Geek Loves His Toys
For this trip we have 1 iPhone, 1 iPad, 1 GoPro Hero 3, 1 Tep Wireless 3G Hotspot and 1 Garmin GPS. Keeping these charged in the car presents certain…challenges.
Ireland – First Full Day
We got up bright and early and had ourselves the full Irish breakfast. Mmmmmm, blood pudding! Cynthia’s feeling much better after the whole incident with breaking my glasses.
We only chose to stay in Dundalk because it wasn’t far from the airport and made for a good jumping off point to head north.
After breakfast we packed up our gear, loaded the car and headed off to drive to Belfast and then link up with the Causeway Coastal Route.
The first place we wanted to see was Carrickfergus. We stopped to see the castle and take in the view of the sea. It was a pleasant stop.
The coastal route takes you along the upper north coast of Northern Ireland and is something to see. Beautiful landscapes along a winding, twisty road that sometimes gets down to a single lane for two way traffic. This can be quite intense as you drive along, having to yield to oncoming traffic with practically nowhere to go. To make matters even worse, there was a bike rally of some kind going on and we had to carefully and frequently pass cyclists along the way.
We made our way to Ballygally Castle around lunchtime and stopped to get some food.
We also paused to take a few photos.
From there we continued to wind our way to Portballintrae where we had a hotel reservation for a few nights. We got checked in and cleaned some of the road from our weary bodies and went for dinner at the Porthole Restaurant. The food was fantastic. We both had locally caught salmon and shared a bottle of wine to toast our success.
For now we say goodnight to Portballintrae
Tomorrow we visit Giant’s Causeway, The Rope Bridge, Dunlace Castle and The Bushmill’s Distillery.
Ireland – Day 2
Today was a good day. The morning started off with thick fog. But as the sun came up, it burned off and we were treated to some very nice sunny skies.
Our first stop of the day was the World Heritage Site known as The Giant’s Causeway. There was still some fog around so it was a moody visit in terms of weather. We were quite happy that we remembered to bring our hiking boots. The terrain is quite rocky and treacherous. Though I suspect it would have been far worse had it been raining.
It is a fantastic site to see and we had some fun climbing around the site.
After hiking around The Giant’s Causeway we headed over to the Carrick-a-Rede, a rocky island connected to the cliffs by a rope bridge.
Getting to the bridge is a hilly climb, up and down the hillside. But the reward is a frightening opportunity to cross a bridge made of rope that spans 20 metres (66 ft) and is 30 metres (98 ft) above the rocks below.
Cynthia was petrified and said that she waited 55 years to cross this bridge and once was enough. When pressed, she said if she lives to be 110 she would repeat the experience. Must remember to set a calendar reminder 🙂
Seriously, though. This WAS her idea. And it was actually a lot of fun.
From here we made our way over to Dunluce Castle to see the ruined structure before it completely collapses into the sea.
All in all, it was a fantastic day. When the sun was shining, short sleeves were just fine. But when the clouds began to return in the evening we were once again glad we had our heavy coats.
Tomorrow we check out of our lovely hotel and make our way to Derry and on to dear old Donegal Town.
Ireland – Day 3
Today we drive from Portballintrae to Donegal Town via Londonderry. 85 scenic miles of twisty and often narrow roads.
We stopped off in Londonderry to visit historic walls.
Via Wikipedia
The Walls were built during the period 1613-1619 by The Honourable The Irish Society as defences for early 17th century settlers from England and Scotland. The Walls, which are approximately 1 mile (1.5 km) in circumference and which vary in height and width between 12 and 35 feet (4 to 12 metres), are completely intact and form a walkway around the inner city. They provide a unique promenade to view the layout of the original town which still preserves its Renaissance style street plan. The four original gates to the Walled City are Bishop’s Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Butcher Gate and Shipquay Gate. Three further gates were added later, Magazine Gate, Castle Gate and New Gate, making seven gates in total. Historic buildings within the walls include the 1633 Gothic cathedral of St Columb, the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall and the courthouse.
We stopped at a coffee shop and the climbed the walls and walked them the entire way round. It rained a bit and was sometimes cold, but it was good to get out of the car and walk around.
From there we drove on to Donegal and found our bed and breakfast and got checked in and then found our way to the city center to get a late lunch and visit Donegal Castle.
Donegal Castle is a quaint wee castle, but not much to look at, really. We poked around and then just wandered the city for awhile. We were both pretty tired from the day’s journey and headed back to the B&B. We rested up for a few hours.
It was during this time that something very interesting happened.
Outside our B&B window is a small flock of sheep in a neighboring field. Cynthia noticed one one of the sheep nearest to the B&B hadn’t moved since we checked in. It was just laying there while the other sheep grazed in the field.
This was causing Cynthia to be a little concerned so I went outside and climbed up the hill behind the B&B to have a closer look. That is when I noticed that the poor guy was trapped in a thorny bush and couldn’t free itself.
I was about ready to climb over the barbed wire fence to try and free him and then thought better of it. Last thing I need is to get tangled up in barbed wire out in the middle of nowhere.
Going back inside I found the B&B owner and asked him if he knew who owned the flock of sheep in the back and he said he did.
I told him what was going on and that the poor guy was stressing Cynthia out a little. And it was stressing me out, too…if I’m honest.
The owner said he would ring up the owner of the flock and let him know. About 30 minutes later we saw the owner of the sheep come over the hill and free the poor, stuck little guy. As we watched the sheep rejoin his flock. We thought that was that and were happy for a happy ending. But that was not the end of the story. As we watched the owner tend to the flock a rainbow appeared over the field. It only lasted a few minutes, but you should have seen Cynthia jumping for joy. It was Cynthia who captured the moment in this fantastic photo…
Now THAT is a happy ending.
After that we decided to go back into town and find some dinner. We stopped at The Olde Castle Bar & Restaurant and enjoyed some pub grub. We went in search of some live music, but didn’t find any and decided to call it a day,
Tomorrow we’re off to Galway.
Ireland – Day 4
Today we made the drive from Donegal to Galway. One of longer drives of the trip. 3 hours if driven straight through, but we are not ones to drive straight through. As we were driving along about to enter County Leitrim we noticed a mountain and had to stop for photos.
While we were pulled over on the side of the road we met a nice German couple who were visiting Ireland and spent some time swapping travel stories before moving on.
As we drove on we saw a sign for Glencar Waterfall and decided to have a look. We ended up going several kilometers down a very narrow, winding road that was quite harrowing at points when encountering a car or van going the opposite direction. But it was well worth the effort as the waterfall is quite beautiful and gave me the opportunity to do some long exposure shots using the ND filter I have recently acquired.
We spent a few hours on this little detour and then proceeded to Galway.
Arrival in Galway was a bit jarring. We were so accustomed to the rural experience that the big city was a bit unnerving, especially having to drive and find the hotel.
We did locate the hotel, but parking was not immediately obvious so we parked in a public, multi-story garage nearby before discovering the hotel did have their own parking. We moved to their parking pretty quickly once we found it.
The hotel is very nice. It’s not the #1 hotel in Galway, but it’s up there. We figured we deserved to splurge after all that driving.
We got checked in and freshened up a bit and then went exploring. We didn’t have lunch on the drive so we had a late (lite) lunch in Galway. After that we went back to the hotel and rested up for a several hours before heading back out to find a proper dinner.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’re off to Inishmore, the largest of the Aaran Islands. This will be a full day adventure featuring bicycle rentals and wild Irish hares.