Nutella Love...

Monday, 8/8/11, Westport to Letterkenny

See me, Mama?! I'm at the castle with Rooster!

What a long, fun day! We were up early (with our 16 roommates) and out of Westport by 8:30 am (I was afraid we had parked illegally overnight). We stopped at a store for food, and made our most valuable purchase of the trip - a jar of Nutella.  Our first adventure of the day occurred mid-morning when Kat spotted a castle WAY off to our left, and we went off-route to find it.  We ended up in a tiny beach town named... nevermind - that town wasn't on our map. We drove a little loop around the head of a peninsula and found out the "castle" was a private residence with a HUGE gate and a guardhouse... I bet the president lives there.  Kat hopped out and got a few good shots of cows, scenery, and Rooster (imagine).

Don't do it! Think of the ewes you're leaving behind!

Kathryn and I made it to Donegal town where we ate our first REAL restaurant meal of the trip (it wasn't a pub, JUST a restaurant!). We stopped at the tourist office to check on accommodations in Letterkenny via the World Wide Web. We quickly found a place to stay (they charge by the minute for Internet) and booked it. Toured the town - took about 15 minutes - and went to find the Slieve League cliffs. A guide book I had read called it the Grand Canyon of Ireland. The cliffs drop from 1920 ft to the Atlantic. We drove up this horrendously narrow, switchbacked road and ended at a car park. The road continued, but a gate blocked our way. We were a bit sore from our mountain experience the day before, so we thought a little jaunt up the road to the cliffs would help us work out the kinks... about 1-1.5 miles later we FINALLY arrived at a 2nd car park that overlooked the cliffs... SERIOUSLY?! Why did someone close that gate?! Oh, well... It was good for our heart. Kat chased some more sheep and even sent one running off the edge of the cliff! Not to worry, he survived - AND she got some good "sheep shots" out of the adventure. The wind was tremendous, but it was a beautiful detour.  As we left that town, we saw a sign for a beach and felt the urge to check it out. It was at the end of a little road and the sand stretched about 1/4 mile from the road to the water. No joke. As we walked onto the beach, a car passed us - you wouldn't believe how excited we got! I ran back to the car park to bring ol' Rooster onto the beach for a photo shoot! He handled that sand like a dream... I imagine if a car could smile, Rooster was grinning from ear to ear. As Kat was positioning the camera for yet another self-timer shot, a piece of trash blew out of the car and went tumbling down the beach. I knew that we could NOT leave Ireland as "litterers", so I took off in a dead sprint to catch the trash. Did I mention the wind was blowing approximately 50 miles per hour?! I finally caught up to the dang bag 200 yards down the beach (felt like 3 miles) while Kathryn laughed and took pictures (all the while sitting in one place). I could deduce only one fact from my heroic venture... I am faster than the wind. We had a hilarious photo shoot with Rooster - no telling what all the other folks on the beach were thinking:)

 

 Greatest discovery of the trip - Nutella and biscuits. We bought a sleeve of "biscuits" at the petrol station (we were hoping they were cookies, not crackers - only took us a full 5 minutes of debating to decide on the biscuits) and ate nutella smeared onto the cookies for the rest of the trip. Delicious!  After this lovely discovery, we drove towards the northwestern tip of County Donegal. County Donegal is known as the least populated and least civilized part of the country. We left the highway on a county road to drive the coastline to the Bloody Foreland - some red granite cliffs... We were the only ones on the road and suddenly our way was blocked by 10-15 sheep! Love! Kat quickly leaped out of the car and proceeded to run after the sheep to get a good picture... let me repeat myself in case you missed it - wearing her flip flops, linen pants, and camera around her neck, she ran down the middle of the road after the sheep. Not to worry - I got it on video. It was a favorite moment of the trip for me:)  After Kathryn got her breath back, and I wiped the tears from my eyes, we saw the gorgeous coastline and we headed on towards Letterkenny.

See?! TWO sheets. With ruffles.

        Turn up your volume for the video:)

Once arriving, we had a date with destiny. We had rough directions to our hostel for the night, but despite asking 3-4 cute Irishmen and cruising the neighborhood several times, we could NOT find the place. As a last-ditch effort (we were thinking we may have to sleep in Rooster), we pulled into a small B&B to ask if they knew the location of the place. Mr. Pat had never heard of the place, but he mentioned that they still had a vacancy for the evening. We quickly agreed and Mrs. Maureen came out to show us to our room. It was heaven! There were TWO sheets on each bed, one fitted and one flat; big, fluffy bath towels; a bathroom of our own with little samples of soap and shampoo; and a TV! We thought we had died and gone to heaven. I didn't realize how tired I was of using my little hand towel in the bathroom and how uncomfortable all those bunk beds had been. We heart Maureen.