Notes from our Diary of our tour of Northern Ireland.

We arrived in Lame after good ferry crossing from Cairnryan. 1st night at Municipal campsite  in very nice park just outside Larne — rained all day! Next morning set off along the Antrim Coastal Causeway Road.  A very scenic drive along the coast.  Made a detour up one of the famous Glens – very narrow roads through the Glen and even narrower back across the high moor but worth it as very scenic and no traffic.  Arrived at  CL near Moss Side. Next day went on our Honda motorbike to Giants Causeway. Busy with tourists. Good Visitor Centre. Walked down to Causeway quite fascinating but not as big as imagined.  Strange volcanic rock formations.  Walked 5 miles along cliffs to remains of ancient castle. Very high cliffs, wonderful scenery, beautiful wild flowers and lots of interesting birds. Caught bus back to Causeway.  Next day  out on bike to the Carrick-on-Bede Rope Bridge.  Stopped at Ballintoy Bay for lunch.  Really beautiful little bay nice beach and small harbour only one shop/cafe, just a few people.

On to the rope bridge and a real tourist trap, very crowded not really our scene but we made the long walk down and Arthur crossed over the bridge to the small island where he saw lots of colonies of nesting sea birds and again it was very scenic.The bridge was used as part of a salmon trap — when there were plenty of salmon! Our last day on the Antrim coast was spent visiting the well preserved Dunluce Castle perched on the edge of the high cliffs, walking along a beautiful “strand’ (beach) with white sand backed by sand dunes and taking in the scenery as far as Port Stewart.

Tuesday we left for the Innishowen Peninsular (the Republic) stopping off at Bushmills, the famous whisky distillery, to have a quick look around.  Not many campsites in this area and nothing cheap so forced to pay 20€ for basic pitch no electric plus 1€ for a shower! We were disappointed with Innishowen.  We thought that we would be seeing a part of Ireland that would still be very rural with traditional style homes and small pretty villages. However as elsewhere in Ireland this is no longer the case.  We   The countryside was covered with new build “mansion” type properties, which would not look out of place in Dallas! Often the old traditional house has been left to fall down beside the mansion perhaps as a reminder of their roots. We moved on to the next peninsular — The Donegal area – still in the Republic. This we liked much more being very much more mountainous and with beautiful white sandy beaches. Quite wild in places but still with the new builds everywhere, even along the Fanad Scenic Drive to Fanad Point a very remote area. We again were forced to pay 20€ for a campsite plus 5€ for electric and 2€ for showers nothing was open but it was by a nice beach. The next day things improved (but not the state of the roads!) as we drove along the Atlantic Scenic Road a narrow road hugging the coast with the mountains coming down to the sea.  We had stopped in a lay-by to admire the view looking down to a most wonderful beach at Portrush.  We had noticed a few interesting cars and chatting to a local discovered that the Donegal National Rally was taking place at the weekend and that this section of road was a stage. Part of it is also used as a hill climb. We were heading for Killibegs near Donegal and a French style Aire that we had read about in MMM. We arrived in Killibegs, Ireland’s biggest fishing port and were pleasantly surprised with the Aire, even if it is called a Holiday Park! Situated on a headland on hardstanding with about 20+ pitches each with h/u. there are cabin type showers/ toilettes which were very clean and good emptying facilities; 15€ a night all inclusive much more reasonable

We stayed here two nights We had our best day out on the bike when we made a 40 miles round trip out around the coast along little narrow roads (whites) passing through pretty villages and inlets (still some new builds) to Teeling harbour where we stopped to view the blown up coastguard station (IRA) on the edge of high cliffs.

Then on to Bungless Point a truly amazing drive a bit scary at times! At the end we reached a viewing point where we could gaze in awe at the dramatic Slieve Lieve cliffs – the highest in Europe? The weather was clear, sunny but windy so we kept well away from the edges! We watched a huge basking shark feeding just off the cliffs 800Ft below. Next day we left beautiful Donegal County and headed inland for Enniskillen.
Stopped at Tully Castle for lunch and a good walk around the grounds & Loch which Midge enjoyed. Then on to our final stopover a very nice CL near Belcoo.

Weather not so good so had to abandon our planned mountain walk and visited Florence Court 18th century house, estate and gardens instead.

The next day we set off for Dublin and the start of the POA Coast to Coast Rallies.

NB   All prices are as they were in 2008!!!