I liked this campsite – you got a private bathroom. A whole room with toilet, basin and shower together and it’s all yours while you use it! No separate shower cubicle, no trying to wash and keep your dignity when people keep walking in. No abandoning of belongings while you nip to the loo. All contained in one space. Call me a prude, but I rejoice when I find this kind of arrangement. Hubby just thinks I’m weird.
It’s broken sunshine today, but there’s dark rainclouds appearing over the hill – big, black and angry and one of them spilled its wrath upon us making us dive for cover and shut the van doors until it passed. It just hammered down for about ten minutes and then the sun came out again. The angry cloud was last seen sitting and disgorging its contents on a local mountain,
We waddled to the Ti Linn cafe and gift shop next door for breakfast – Ireland doesn’t seem to do a veggie full breakfast, so I settled with avocado on toast which was very nice. We were the only ones in – The Pup stayed in the van for a lie in and afterwards we had a quick wander around the gift shop, baulking at the prices of the jumpers.
Our first point of call today was Malin Beg, the furthest west you can go in Donegal. We arrived at a large parking area which overlooked a fabulous beach, far below. It can be reached by negotiating a several flights of steps and it’s well worth the effort. Once again, beautiful soft sand leading to a clear sea with gentle waves surrounded by tall cliffs. It was just magical especially in the sun. We stayed for quite a while, with The Pup wragging seaweed (we forgot her ball) and having a whale of a time, before steadily ascending the stone steps. That’s worked off breakfast.
We jumped into the van and headed vaguely north, past tall majestic cliffs on the coast – before veering in slightly inland, first to the little village of Glencolumbkille nestled in the rolling coastal hills before snaking across to Glengesh. The landscape was changing again as we headed across the countryside – upland moorland, mountains, peatlands, crags. Donegal was the most dramatic of all the counties we had visited on our trip. Constantly changing and so awe inspiring. The road took us up high, across an empty landscape until we summited and the valley opened up before us. Glengesh is a fantastic viewpoint looking down the valley towards Ardara. We pulled into the little parking area and found, to our delight, one of those little coffee huts (they seem to be quite popular at these viewpoints). Perfect timing – coffee and cake while soaking in this splendid view.
The road snaked its way down towards Ardara, a pleasant little town and we followed the Wild Atlantic Way up towards Maas, taking a slight detour down towards Naran and Portnoo. We just had a quick nose and turned around – we like our small empty beach coves too much.
We headed to Dunglow, realising that we didn’t have much of an itinerary today and seemed to just be driving for the sake of it. I wanted to check out the sea stack at Crohy Head, so drove up to Dunglow as we missed the first turning and followed a narrow lane to Maghery, small community towards the end of the headland and onto Crohy Head where the road hugged the coastline. We were expecting a little parking area as it was mentioned in one of the guide books, but there was nothing, not even any signage. We peered down towards the sea, hoping to catch a glimpse, but to no avail. We retraced our steps, thinking we would see it on the way back, but again hidden from view. So we stopped and Google mapped it – thank goodness for technology as it highlighted the stack and we zoomed in on its precise location. Finally, after passing a fantastic Grand Designs house buried into the earth like a Hobbit dwelling about four times (we must of started looking suspicious) we stopped in a little lay-by/passing place behind a car who’s owner was having a nap. Grabbing The Pup for a bit of fresh air, I finally saw the sea stack! But how did anyone to get down to see it better? Eventually we spotted a path line in the grass in a field, which lead down to the edge of the cliff, but there was no signs to say whether you could go down or not. It was quite steep too. I ummed and aared before deciding not to go – it’s suppose to be the most photographed stack, but I wouldn’t get a great shot where I was. So we headed back to the car and decided to concentrate on finding somewhere to stay.
Ever since we arrived in Ireland, we have spotted county flags flying everywhere, mainly in private gardens. All the Irish counties have their own county flag – a bit like Cornwall or Northumbria and Donegal was no exception. Each county has its own colour and the flags can be chequered or have the county emblem emblazoned on them. It’s quite a splendid sight.
Dunglow had a site in the centre of town, which we noted, but a quick Google revealed a place called Sleepy Hollows campsite near Crolly about 12km from Dunglow. It also had Leo’s Tavern just down the road, famous for being known as the home of music artists Clannad, Enya and Moya Brennan, and most nights had live music. This sounded perfect and we found both easily. However, Sleepy Hollows was full – the first time we had failed to secure a pitch! That was rather disappointing to say the least. The lovely owner told us we could park overnight in Leo’s car park if we asked nicely otherwise the nearest campsite he knew of was a good 45 minutes away. The day was going slightly pear shaped at this point, so we drove back down the road slowly, contemplating our next move when we came across some little camping pods. An idea struck us – why not stay in one of those tonight? Then we could go to Leo’s after all! So we found the phone number and gave them a call. Yes they had space – yippee, but dogs weren’t allowed, but we could try Leo’s car park…….
Leo’s car park was okay, but it was a pub car park at the end of the day. We were in a slight pickle now, but hubby found another possibility in a place called Creeslough, in north Donegal. So we plumbed in the town and followed the satnav to Gweedore, turning east. We were abandoning the Wild Atlantic Way, lopping off the northwest bit of Donegal as we followed the R251 which was a bit annoying, but oh my goodness, what a fabulous route! It took us into the Derry Veagh Mountains, passing an impressive quartzite eminence called An Earagail (Errigal mountain) all 752m of it as well as other summits. It was absolutely stunning and actually a pleasant change of scenery to the coastal routes – sometimes it’s great to go off piste – you never know what you will come across! The satnav took us down some little back country roads before burping us out in the town of Creeslough and we quickly found the Wild Atlantic Campsite – an unusual place in its set up, as it seemed rather open and public – more of a community area than a campsite. There was wine bar/cafe, launderette and pizza place by the entrance, then the reception surrounded by a play and games area which the local children used, a small amusement arcade which seemed open to anybody, various holiday accommodation in the shape of villas and pods and then motorhome pitches. We were getting too tired to travel further and it looked fine, just a bit different to all the other sites we had stayed at. There were quite a few other campers already set up, so we booked in and was allocated a pitch over looking a large grassy area. Anyway it had a pizza shop which solved our dilemma with what to have for tea (again we had been useless at getting in supplies – at one point, tea would of been a hodge podge of what we could find in the fridge).
We wandered up later to get the pizzas and was going to check out the pods and villas, all lined up in a semi circle, while we waited for the pizza to cook. They looked quite attractive, but were sat right next door to each other and as they were quite modern with floor to ceiling glass windows, there seemed a lack of privacy. There was no hedges or fencing separating them – they would look fabulous in a Centreparc type setting. This whole site looked pretty new, so perhaps things were ongoing. We were going to press our noses up against the empty ones to have a look inside, but a stern notice about “No Dogs in this area” made us change tact and we sat on the verandah of the cafe, sunning ourselves which was very pleasant.
We waddled back with our pizza boxes and sat in the van to eat them. The wind was quite cool and then relaxed, planning what we would do with the last two days of our Irish adventure. The end was rushing up too soon, but it seemed weeks ago when we first set foot on this wonderful island. We decided to stay at Malin Head, the most northerly point of Ireland and toast it with a pint like we had done with the south and west and on Friday, follow the WAW to its end in Londonderry and a quick dash to Belfast ready for the ferry on Saturday morning.
apathtosomewhere 