After a night of good sleep, I was awake by 7 local time. I enjoyed how much more peaceful our views were this morning before the tour buses started rolling in.
And then we got ready for the day and headed down to breakfast. Breakfast was included in the stay here. When we got to the dining room, we were given menus for hot items and directed to a small buffet line for toast, fruit, yogurt, cereal and juices. I think Dad and I ordered pancakes and Laura and Nick ordered the mini Irish breakfast (so lots of meat). And then we helped ourselves to the continental buffet while we waited.
The food was good, service was decent and breakfast was pretty efficient. We then headed upstairs to finish rounding up luggage. Nick and I then met dad down at the car with our luggage, which we loaded in the car before heading over to Laura’s room.
Dad and I had both booked seaview rooms. Laura had outsmarted us and booked a terrace room. So after hearing all about it, we went to check it out. While her view wasn’t great during tour bus hours, she did have a really nice outdoor space, and a pretty nice view after the tour buses left. And by stepping over the low wall that separated her terrace from the walkway, we could get her monstrosity of a suitcase down to the car with significantly less stairs. So, that’s exactly what we did, after spending a few minutes enjoying the views.
Once all the luggage was loaded in the car, we officially checked out. Nick and I were both in agreement that we would stay at the Causeway Hotel again in a heartbeat. I didn’t actually ask Laura and Dad’s opinions but they didn’t seem to be complaining about the accommodations, so that’s a win.
We left the hotel just as the first tour buses were rolling in, so things were still relatively calm, and it was easy enough to get out of the parking lot and back out to the “main road”. It was a quick drive to our next stop, Dunluce Castle, which is castle ruins on a cliff, where we found the last remaining parking spot in the tiny lot. Here, based on group decision (which had included dad saying “I saw plenty of castles in Germany, so I don’t need to go IN any castles”...oh boy…), we did not go within the walls of the castle, so we didn’t have to pay. We just walked around outside the walls. There were some decent views, and it’s wild to think about what relatively good condition these ruins are in, for something that was constructed in the 13th century. And yes, this was one of the Game of Thrones filming locations.
From here, we drove a couple more minutes down the coast to the Magheracross Viewpoint. Here we easily found parking in a decent sized carpark. And we found some incredible views of the Northern Ireland coastline. We could even see Dunluce Castle.
Once we’d gotten our fill of picture taking, we climbed back in the car to work our way towards our next destination. This next leg of the trip took a little over an hour and led us over quite the variety of roads, through little towns and up over mountains. It was a beautiful (and, at times white knuckle) drive to our next destination, in the Sperrins.
So what exactly was our next destination? It was Nowanois, a Thomas Dambo troll. Thomas Dambo is an artist from Denmark that travels the world constructing giant trolls out of trash wood: scraps, old pallets, etc. Nick and I have seen his trolls in Maine and Kentucky. We hope to see his trolls in Rhode Island and one in Michigan over the next year. So we wanted to add one of the 3 he has in Northern Ireland to the list. The other two require a decent walk/hike. But Nowanois is just a few minutes from the parking lot. So, although it meant not visiting some other places that would have been nice to see, it was a logical stop.
We enjoyed the views of the mountains and countryside as we walked up to the troll. When we got to the troll, we discovered a very red-faced couple emerging from behind the troll, hence the random shoe on the troll. None of us could quite figure out why a shoe needed to be removed…or placed on the troll. Also…woodchips. YEEOWCH. Anyway, Nick and I saw another Thomas Dambo troll, and Laura and Dad saw their first.
Troll seen, and the boys having experienced a flushing (and clean!) porta potty in the parking lot (very exciting! Very Not American!), we continued on to Donegal Town. Thankfully the roads leading there were increasingly less rural, but not uncomfortably so.
When we got into Donegal Town, it was easy enough to find The Abbey Hotel. Unfortunately, the tour buses had also found The Abbey Hotel, so there was no space to pull up in front of the hotel. So, we headed for the parking lot…err…car park…down the street. This was a bit of an adventure, because Nick was sure he saw closer parking on the map on the GPS (tied to Google Maps) in the car, but it actually was more like a service road with no exit, so I had to back up quite a distance, down this dinky little service road…in an XC90, which is just not made for driving in Ireland. But…we found a parking space and also found that because it was Sunday, we did not need to pay to park. Yay!
Since it was before official check-in time, we left the luggage in the car and headed up to the hotel. Sure enough, we were “a wee bit early for check in”. She said, though, that our rooms should be ready in about half an hour. So, we headed across the street for our first Irish pub experience at McAfferty’s. It was a hit. We all enjoyed this pub…both the atmosphere, and the selection. And Laura, Nick and I all decided we really liked Rockshore Cider, which turns out is made by Guinness, and, unfortunately, not available in the States. Dad had Irish whiskeys, and Nick probably had at least one whiskey here too.
After enjoying McAfferty’s, it was late enough that we headed back to the car to get the luggage, and then rolled it up the street to the hotel. Check in was quickly completed, and after agreeing on a time to meet, we headed upstairs (thankfully via the “lift”) to find our rooms.
I think Nick and I were in room 310. Dad was on the second floor and Laura was on the 1st (which was one above the lobby). We settled in for a few minutes (aka took pictures of the room and found jackets).
After briefly settling in, we headed back out. It was time for FOOD! We made the short walk over to the Olde Castle Seafood Bar. We grabbed seats at the bar, because my dad is a savage who can’t handle eating at a table (no really…his biggest complaint about Ireland other than the amount of time spent in the car was the lack of seats at the bar…). The bartender greeted us quickly, and he was awesome. Kinda snarky and really on top of things. We got drinks, perused the menu, and felt like we were at home when we started noticing a bunch of first responder patches from NH (we were not aiming for that!). And then we ordered food.
The experience here was excellent. Service was great and so was the food (and drinks). I had another Rockshore cider and the (massive) fish and chips. Laura had a burger, Nick had a pulled pork open faced sandwich and dad had a salmon salad. Dad, ever the critic, liked his meal enough to post pictures on facebook. Phew, I did well!
It started raining (I mean…we ARE in Ireland) while we were eating. When we finished eating, we took a few pictures as we worked our way back to the hotel (which was very close by. On our way to the hotel, we went to the bar at the hotel next door, the Central Hotel. We had a round of drinks and learned about the Irish sport of camogie, since that was on the TVs in the bar. Galway was facing off against another fairly nearby city in the finals. It was an intense sport.
After drinks here, Nick went to get some waters and Irish candy from the nearby convenience store and dad and I wandered into the bar at the Abbey Hotel to listen to music for a few minutes. Irish drinking songs in a bar. Now this is what I came to Ireland for!
When the band wrapped up their set, we all headed upstairs. Nick and I tried some Irish Cadbury Dairy, which was amazing, and then after showers in a shower that was actually easy to step into, crashed for the night.
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