A cow named Tennessee.

Tuesday, 8/9/11, Letterkenny to Portrush

At Malin Head, the northernmost tip of Ireland

Go, Rooster, Go!

Today might have been my very favorite day of the trip. Seriously... We woke up to Maureen cooking us a full Irish breakfast; this included cereal, soda bread, fresh fruit, bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, and REAL coffee! As we were eating, we asked Maureen what we should see as we made our way into Northern Ireland - she told us to drive to Malin Head. A couple from Seattle were sitting next to us, and they both agreed with Maureen. Those two folks had been biking (as in, pedaling) around Ireland for the past 2 weeks (we were ashamed to tell them about our horrific biking trip around Dingle). Anyway, the man claimed they had been to the most scenic point in Ireland on Malin Head. Well, we couldn't miss that, right?!  Malin Head is a peninsula that is circled by a tiny road that takes you to the northernmost tip of Ireland. The cyclist's directions were something like, "drive until you get the cemetery then turn... the pull off is just past the old tree." No problem, Seattle-man... we have impeccable senses of direction. We soon found ourselves on a single lane road in the middle of nowhere... first we came upon an incredibly remote, beautiful beach where a sheep dog herded Rooster into a parking spot. We stopped for some pictures and I walked down to the frigid water to put my toes in. We kept looking for the cemetery, because surely this wasn't the spot. It was beautiful, but not the best spot we had seen.  As we were searching for the cemetery, we kept seeing Gaelic signs with '100' on them. You should have heard our conversations about those signs... "100 miles?" "100 windmills?" "100 people died at this point?" "You think you can see 100 km in each direction from there?" "Maybe '100' means something else in Gaelic?" Remember that we were the two who, on a roadtrip several years ago, decided that MB Church meant "Methodist Baptist" church... makes perfect sense!

Farmer Paddy drove up to this...

Anyway, we passed some black and white cows - mental note (Kathryn had it in her head to take a close up picture of a black and white cow on a green hill sometime during the trip) -  and some farmers Saran-wrapping hay bales (we had wondered about that). We made it up to the car park at the overlook and the view was incredible. Seattle man had not exaggerated. You could see for miles... everything from water to beaches to rocks to mountains to rolling pastures. We both took some pictures then headed back down the way we came. We stopped for a few moments to watch how the hay bales were Saran-wrapped, then stopped again to see the cow. I kept the car running, just pulled off on the side of the road while Kathryn opened her door and stood up on the car to take some pics of "Bessie." I found myself mooing at the cow, and would laugh when she moo-ed back! As we were laughing, we realized she was not mooing to say hello, the cow was in labor!

Poor Bessie...

Kathryn then climbed up on the hood of the car to get some close-ups, and I moved closer to the fence to give Bessie some moral support. We were freaking out! Just at that moment, the farmer pulled up in his little tiny car, and we greeted him with , "SIR, YOUR COW IS HAVING A BABY!" He looked at us strangely and muttered something that sounded like "Yeah" (again, we have problems with the accents). Kathryn then climbed off the car, and we had a lovely conversation with Farmer Paddy (that's what we called him) about cows, the miracle of birth, Saran-wrapping hay bales ("Ah, that's the McFadden boys down the road... it costs an extra 12 euro to wrap those bales."), and our ignorance of farming. He told us to come back anytime and he would teach us how to farm.  Anyway, when we found out Bessie would take 3 hours minimum to have that baby cow, we knew we couldn't stick around for the baby's arrival. But Farmer Paddy promised to name the calf after us once it was born - Tennessee! There is a baby cow in Ireland named after Meagan Moody and Kathryn Spencer. Farmer Paddy also told us that we needed to go back up to the scenic point on top the mountain and continue on from there... So we left the farmer, Bessie, and little Tennessee, and drove back up the mountain. The weather was PERFECT on this day. Sunny, warm, fluffy clouds in the sky... we never figures out what that "100" meant, but think it was referring to the scenic overlook.

Kat suggested a less ladylike pose...

We ate more Nutella and biscuits while on the road to Derry and crossed the border into Northern Ireland without even realizing it... Moment like our arrival into Derry made me realize that our trip must be God-divined... As we entered Derry, we were stressing about navigating the city (this was our first REAL city since Dublin) to find parking; we knew we needed to find an ATM quickly because we only had euros in our purses, and we both had to go to the bathroom really badly! So Kat found us a parking garage easy-peasy - we pulled into an open spot right as we entered, walked out of the parking garage and the first thing we saw was a women's public restroom with an ATM right next to it! If that's not a sign from God, I don't know what is:)  Kathryn and I spent about 2 hours in Derry walking the perimeter of the city center atop the old medieval city wall. Derry is one of the only cities in Europe whose entire city wall is still intact... We took some pics, watched some little girls Irish dancing, stopped for Lucozades, and left town!

Our breakfast nook:)

 We got to Portrush and fell in love. We immediately found a great B&B on the harbor side of the town and set off exploring. Portrush is an old, kinda rundown beach resort town that is actually surrounded by water on 3 sides of town. There were two large stretches of beach within walking distance of our B&B, and we watched the kids surfing and body boarding for a long time before trying to find some music for the evening. We were there on a Tuesday night, so much was not happening in town:) However, in every other town we had visited, good music was always available to hear on ANY night of the week. We sauntered into the pub to see 8-10 grown men sitting in a circle all playing acoustic guitars. We listened for a while, hooting and hollering when they played some Lynrd Skynrd, but mentioned to each other that the guys weren't very good... We later found out that one of the guys (who was originally from New Jersey) was the other guys' guitar teacher, and he and the REAL band were going to be starting later... so we met some new friends, one being a 70-something year old British guy named Ian who was a brilliant harmonica player. We had the best time! The band kept playing songs for the "girls from Tennessee", and Ian and BJ (another older gentleman who took lessons from Jersey) kept us entertained with stories all night long.

Me, BJ, precious Ian, and Kat!

It was just another randomly wonderful day in Ireland:)