Sat, 28 Jun 2003

author Tim	location Downings, Donegal, Ireland
posted 09:18 BST 29/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ireland/Ireland 1 ( all photos )

Donegal - Mountain Climbing ( 28 photos )
On Saturday, we set an alarm to wake up earlier than other days, as we had been getting on the road later and later each day.
First stop was Rossnowlagh Beach, not far from our overnight accommodation, where after a quick wander across the very flat sand, we noticed that everyone else had their cars down there. Not poeple to miss an opportunity, we jumped in Rosie and hoped we didn't get bogged as we drove her up and down the beach, true Aussie-on-the-other-side-of-the-world style.
We found cheap fuel on the way through the city of Donegal (which, despite being the county town, only has 3000 people living there), and thought that perhaps another recommended Island was in order, heading out to Burtonport for the ferry to Arranmore. We sat and had a light lunch while deciding whether to get the ferry or not - it was quite expensive, and we would have had to wait around for a while. I noticed a local teenager who was feeding coins into a pool table, practising against himself, who might like an opponent for a change. A round of good luck saw me just winning, although I have to admit that their rules they play here are quite lenient compared to some.
In the end, we decided that the Island could wait until next time, and instead took on a far more challenging afternoon.
This started with a drive to Dunlewy, behind probably the slowest driver in all of the country (Rosie's not so good at overtaking), where we found the lake-side Information Centre. We had headed here for information about climbing the imposing 752m (2440 feet) Mount Errigal, the highest in Donegal. This we began by driving around to "base camp" parking lot, where there were so many other cars we had trouble parking.
In the end, we scrambled up over bog, stones, and very narrow ledges to reach the summit in an hour and a half, where we rested for a little while while trying not to be blown off the top down the almost shere sides. It apparently has one of the smallest caps (about 2m square) in Ireland, meaning that we had to keep our wits about us at all times. Getting the last hundered feet or so was across a very narrow ledge where we felt like tight-rope walkers, focusing on our path while to either side of our vision the world scrolled by rapidly, so far down.
Going down was easier than we expected, my almost-useless knees somehow held out, and we both only had a few trips, and those at the safe parts. We collapsed into Rosie, warn out and sore, but very glad that we had made it, not exactly being experienced mountaineers.
We wanted to head quick-smart to a caravan park, and found ourselves one up on the shores of Sheephaven Bay. Driving there was another challenge, on possibly the worst roads anywhere, ever (Ireland's roads are of a pretty poor standard across the board, in some places there are signs showing that EU cash has been used to replace them, and those sections are very good. However, the vast majority of the tarmac is lumpy, bumpy, potholed, and looks like people come along every few months, dig massive holes, and fill them in haphazardly).
We took a turn towards a town which we thought to be kind of where we wanted to go (our map for Ireland is not very detailed), which was a single track road where the two cars in front decided they had gone the wrong way and wanted to turn around. However, we pushed on and somehow, this magic road took about an hour off our journey, dumping us much closer to our goal than we had imagined! From there, we pushed on towards the town of Downings, where we checked into the caravan park, before wandering to the nearest pub that served food and devouring whatever came, too tired to even think about cooking.

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