The Road to Donegal

It’s just a hop and a skip to Donegal so we start with a leisurely breakfast in Madden’s bar.  The publican gives us a grilling about all the places we’ve been - to check we’ve not missed anything important.  We’re pleased, and relieved, to pass this test.  He tells us about the Red Bull diving from Downpatrick Head and we check out the YouTube video.  Breathtaking or stomach churning depending on your disposition.  Google it, if the link doesn’t work. 

We are also told that the population of Bundoran is around 2,000, but with holiday homes, guest houses and so on, there can be up to 30,000 people there at any one time in the summer.  Nearly all the visitors are Irish, many from the North, and the pub does two thirds of its annual trade in July and August alone.

I’m on driving duty, so park up and head back to meet the others at halfway.  There’s the usual shenanigans at the rendezvous point, and Nigel misses the coffee stop altogether, but we soon regroup and head down to Rossnowlagh beach, where there are dozens of surfers hard at it, in high winds and great surf.  

I am told that the highlight of the first part of today’s journey was the statue of Rory Gallagher in his birthplace, Ballyshannon, and pretty soon we are back at the car and loading up.  It feels odd to be finishing our circuit of the Irish coastline in Donegal, given that we started it in Cork.  But that’s what happens when the order of events is decided by committee.  This week’s journey may have been reckoned, by some, as the least interesting part of Ireland, but it has been a joy from start to finish.  I have a feeling I’ll be back for more Irish pedalling before too long.

Donegal to Belfast