Donegal

Well, I've discovered what constitutes a 'full Irish breakfast'. Ready? 2 bacon, 2 sausages, 2 eggs, black and white pudding, hashbrown, tomato, chips, toast, tea or coffee. Now you know why we politely declined at the B&B.

The Sligo hostel wasn't exactly full, and we were the last of the 7 to leave the hostel at 9:00am. It was our day to explore the northwest corner of the island, known as County Donegal. The town of Donegal was the obvious choice for morning tea. Ireland is different to almost every other western country we've been to. There's plenty of coffee on offer at pubs, servos and convenience stores, but a cafe or bakery as we know it for cake and coffee is quite rare. I think that the expectation is that you go to the pub or restaurant instead for a coffee. However, we did find one teashop in Donegal, and it served great coffee.

While in Donegal we visited the Donegal Castle, right in the middle of the town with a busy road at the front door, so it wasn't the personification of a secluded castle fortress. Also explored Donegal Abbey, now in ruins thanks to the British attacking and plundering it. It would have been a typical abbey and church complex.

Then we headed out the coast road, onto more goat tracks with more sheep to be scattered. Got to the tip of the peninsula at Malin Beg, and Mandy climbed down the hundreds of stairs to the beach in the cove below to write a message to her Prep grade in the pristine sand. Along the cliff face past lots of high, rugged cliffs like the Cliffs of Moher the other day. Through Ardara to Dunglow where we had a pizza lunch at 3pm - the travel is so slow with the narrow winding roads.

Headed through Letterkenny on the most direct route to our destination. Where were we going you might well ask? Well, along with lots of things in Ireland its not straightforward. According to maps we got yesterday in the Republic of Ireland, we were going to Derry. According to today's maps from Northern Ireland, we were going to Londonderry. Basically the Nationalists and Catholics call it Derry, and the Unionists and Protestants call it Londonderry. The UK government and its signs call it Londonderry, and the Republic of Ireland's maps and signs call it Derry. Originally Londonderry, the majority of people in the city are Catholic so the council changed its name to Derry in 1984, but the UK High Court ruled in 2007 that this hadn't changed the name of the town. The UK Government now allows residents to choose to nominate either name on their birth certificates. You might even see that this blog site only has Derry for me to choose as the city, but the Google map shown above lists both. Sigh.

Anyway, somewhere along one of the lanes we noticed that the road markings and street signs had changed, and when we came across a red phone box in a village we realised that we had crossed the border into Northern Ireland. Certainly no visible border or controls.

Checked into our hostel, actually into into an adjacent property, and were relieved to get an untimed parking spot outside. Down to an ATM to get yet another currency.