We decided that we would have an proper breakfast this morning.
So we got our act together, sorted out the van and drove the short distance up the hill to An Dun cafe – sounds really lazy, but we had to be off the site and also we could head straight off – well that’s our excuse.
The cafe opened at 10am and was already busy when we arrived. Our lovely couple from Leicestershire joined us (they had walked up as they were staying overnight again) and we enjoyed a hearty breakfast and coffee together. Finally we said our goodbyes and headed off in our different directions – we might bump into each other again, who knows.
We came off Achill Island, back on the mainland and headed northwards towards Bangor – the mountains giving way to miles of blanket bog and piles of peat bricks. We assumed that the peat was being cut for local and private use as we had not seen any large commercial peat operations. As peat is a great carbon store, its cutting releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and impacts greatly on the landscape. Its harvesting has been scaled back significantly over the last few years, but there was still miles and miles of presumed small scale domestic cutting.
At Bangor we lopped a corner off and drove up the side of Carrowmore Lake before turning right and joining the R314. This was again mainly moorland and peat fields. In the distance we could some dramatic cliffs, so we decided to dive down a small road towards the coastal village of Portacloy. We discovered a lovely little bay surrounded by a smattering of houses, with a beautiful sandy beach, totally deserted with a little sail boat bobbing out to sea. We had a stretch of the legs and was having a cuppa, when the owners of the parked camper in front of us returned. They had a gorgeous collie dog who instantly made friends with The Pup and they had a good ten minutes of chasing and playing together. There was a cool wind despite the van saying it was 19 degrees and there was a great deal of cloud cover.
We said goodbye to the collie and his family and followed the back roads, running roughly parallel with the coastal road. The only significant trees to grow here were spruces and other fir trees in seemingly small commercial plots, though a lot of the trees had self seeded – it didn’t seem to have been managed for some time. We popped back on the R314 at Belderg and came across the Ceide Fields Visitor Centre – where a local schoolteacher cutting turf back in 1930’s discovered an extensive Stone Age settlement and is the oldest in the world at 6,000 years old. We pulled into the car park and as the guide book we were following, declared “that the remains may be a little underwhelming, but it’s worth a stop to admire the 100m tall cliffs from the viewing platform opposite”. With that dampener about the remains and the fact that The Pup couldn’t go in anyway, we voted for the platform and got a stunning view of a little inlet and the stunning cliffs. We spent few minutes scanning for wildlife which remained elusive and headed back to the Van.
The countryside had dropped down and now there were trees, hedges and gentle rolling countryside. We stopped in the lovely little village of Ballycastle opposite the little village store which was surprisingly still open – just before 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, we thought everything would be shut tight. So we hurried in – it was small and compact but seemed to have an excessive amount of disinfectants, toothpaste and other non perishable products, but hardly any food unless it was tinned. We didn’t have many options at this point – there was literally just cheese and biscuits in the Van, unless we fancied granola for tea. Somehow we scrapped together some ham, two pots of trifle, some carbonara sauce (we had seen some fresh pasta lurking somewhere in the fridge) and a packet of biscuits and feeling triumphant, hopped back in the van. We had muted the thought of heading to Downpatrick Head, just north of Ballycastle where there was a spectacular sea stack, but you could only go so far and then walk to it. The guide book’s warning of the exposed headland and cliff edge, especially on windy days didn’t sell it to us plus the fact we had seen it quite clearly in the distance on our way in to Ballycastle, also helped our decision to carry on.
We kept on the R314 – with our late morning, we were a bit behind on time and now realising it was late afternoon, need to tracked down a place to stay.
We had spotted a campsite on the map in Ballina and headed in that direction past the little community of Killala and its little tidal bay which was quaint. Just before the town, we turned off into the Belleek Park caravan site which looked quite smart, so we checked in. We have rocked up to every one of our campsites so far and managed to get a pitch. A lot of them we have seen in a little Irish caravan, camping and motorhome guide that we picked up in Mullingar when we first arrived in Ireland (seems ages ago) and it’s been a little godsend. They have all been different, some very modern, some a bit dated, some quite quirky, but they have all ticked a box and we haven’t been disappointed or really disliked one.
As usual we were left to cruise the site and pick our own pitch, finding one in front of a hedge (the weather was due to deteriorate again so we wanted some shelter) and we quickly nested and went off for a walk around the site. The Pup wanted her tea (she can be quite insistent) so we cooked the sausages we bought from Ballina’s village shop and just chilled. Hubby managed to concoct a lovely meal from our meagre pantry and with the sun shining (of course, we were in the shade again) we relaxed. Though we are only touring around, it’s strangely quite tiring. We seem to sleep well despite a Labrador sharing our tiny bed. We had an early night after planning our itinerary for tomorrow and after a brief struggle to claim our rightful bits of the duvet, fell asleep.
apathtosomewhere 