Day 2

Excellent breakfast to start us off.

Then proceeding through the wind, rain and hail to Bushmills for a look at the Giants Causeway. It became apparent to me that all the photos of the causeway I'd seen in the past used a clever camera angle to make the Stones seem larger than they are. Good to see though.

Stayed in Bushmills which must be one of most rundown places I've seen. The Sportsman pub offers "good fun" and "cold drinks" as its selling points. I'd have thought cold drinks was the minimum you expect from a pub so we decided not to test the fun.

Day one

Three of us set off at 10 from the palatial Paddys Palace in Belfast. 1 mile later we were stopped for a coffee break!

Exceptional gale force winds meant loads of trees down and VERY hard work cycling SW.

Eventually reached Lough Neagh where the waves were breaking. Stayed at the excellent Bay Cottage B&B.

Weather

Looks like Monday will be the most challenging weather - strong wind generally in our faces and rain - but longer term forecast looks reasonable although a little cold.

My main concern is strong winds (against us) which makes the distances much, much harder. Current forecast seems to imply this should be okay (apart from Monday).

Giant's Causeway

There is a small element of truth in the legend of Finn McCool, who is said to have built the causeway to fight a much larger giant in Scotland, in that the causeway was formed in the Scottish Midland Valley which extends to Northern Ireland. The Midland Valley developed some 400 million years ago as a consequence of the collision between two land masses containing the Northern and Southern fragments that formed the British Isles. About 60 million years ago, as America and Europe separated, several million years of basaltic magmatism covered the whole area; leaving the remnants seen today.

There is much speculation about the processes which formed these unusual basalt columns. They are often said to be hexagonal but in fact various polygonal shapes are present. Several papers have been published on the formation of such patterns. The formation of the columns is associated with the cooling process but only a very few flood basalts cool in this way. An interesting mystery.

However other natural structures sometimes cool in a similar fashion:

Ice flows in Arctic Canada.

Hostels at Tra na Rosann and Errigal

All,

First my apologies for misleading you over sheet sleeping bags. Re -reading the notes with the booking confirmation clarifies that it is ordinary sleeping bags which are banned - the YHA type sheet sleeping bags are OK. Otherwise one can hire sheets and pillows at 2 euros per night. This in any case only applies at Tra na Rosann as bed linen IS included in the price at Errigal.
The hostel at Errigal, which is miles from anywhere, offers a 2 course evening meal at 14 euros for groups and a 5 euro continental breakfast, if prebooked. Do you wish me to pursue this and/or make a booking. I dont know the definition of a group but would hope we would be acceptable.

Update 16th May:
Further to above, the Hostel Manager advises that a group is 15 to 20 strong so a party of 6 does not count. Its just not our day - see first comment.
There is, however, a shop next to the Hostel which sells a range of food sufficient to make an evening meal. Even so, we'd better have some emergency rations just in case.

Irish Trip - Accomodation.

Hi all,

I have made a booking request through An Oige (Irish YHA to us) for 6 places each at Tra-na-Rosann (26/5) and Errigal (27/5) and am promised a reply within 3 working days by phone or e-mail. The website seemed quite keen to get hold of my money, booking or not so we will have to wait and see. The An Oige hostel for Donegal Town is not actually in Donegal at all but 5 miles out in the middle of nowhere. I have therefore booked a 6 bed dorm in the Donegal Independant Hostel (which IS in Donegal Town) for Sat 28/5 through Hostelworld and I have a booking confirmation for that. It has good write ups on the Hotelworld website.  I have also booked a quarter of a (MIXED) 4 bed dorm at Paddy's Palace, Belfast for the Monday night 23/5 so expect that I may fall off the train on the Tuesday morning unable to put one pedal in front of the other. (I wish!!).
Look out for an update to this entry some time next week.

UPDATED 14/3

An e-mail from Bridget (who else?) confirms our bookings at Tra-na-Rosann and Errigal. Sheets are NOT included and the standard YHA sheet sleeping bag is not permitted. Bring your own or pay 2 euros per night. They do issue blankets/pillows however. Also we are warned that they are "remote" so we will need to be self sufficient. There is food to be had nearish to TnR and I may contact the establishments to confirm exact details of provision. At Errigal we may need to go prepared to cook.

Irish Ride 2011 - route ideas.

Further to the meeting we had at the Flowerpot I have been firming up ideas on routes/stopovers - without total success. The first 3 days seem OK. They are:

Day 1: Belfast via Lagan Valley and Loughshore Trail to Antrim - about 60 miles
Day 2: Antrim to Portglenone on R94 thence "overland" to Balleymoney and Bushmills (nearest town to Giants Causeway). This is also about 60 miles.  I have not checked but there is sure to be accomodation around here and Coleraine is a further 16 miles which may be a little too far allowing time to properly visit the Giants Causeway.
Day 3: Bushmills to Castlerock on R94 thence to Magilligan Point for the Ferry to Greencastle and down the west side of Lough Foyle (the Republic side) to Derry. This is another about 60 miles.

After there I am unable to make my mind up. We need to be in the vicinity of Knock Airport by the end of day 7. Being in Ireland, Knock Airport is not at Knock but nearer Charlestown but it is 30 miles south of Sligo on the N17 road. There is a late afternoon flight from Knock to East Mids so Sligo or Carrick-on-Shannon could be stopover points. Carrick to Knock is about 35 miles. Sligo is reachable comfortably in a day from Donegal which is itself within a day's ride of Derry so we have two days ; one cycling day and one non cycling day. As I have not cycled in Donegal my personal preference would be to take 2 or even 2 and a half days between Derry and Donegal; say a short hop to Strabane (20 miles) after a morning exploring Derry, stop there on day 4 then to somewhere like Dunglow for day 5 overnight and finally via Killybegs to Donegal for day 6. Both these latter 2 days would be in the 45 to 50 miles range.
There are Youth Hostels (An Oige) at both Donegal and Sligo, and "Paddy's Palace" Hostels in Belfast and Derry. I do not know of accomodation possibilites in the other potential overnight stops.

Comments welcome!

UPDATED 20th February

This is my latest suggestion for the second half of the tour, from Londonderry onwards. The route has been determined in part by the lack of accomodation (other than hostels) for a group of 5 or 6 of us without resorting to splitting up each night or paying a large sum at a hotel.

Day 4. Londonderry to Buncrana - 15 miles - on the east shore of Lough Swilly. We are now in the Republic. Cross Lough Swilly on the ferry to Rathmullan and then cycle the 20 or so miles to the Tra-na-Rosan Irish YHA Hostel on the Rosguill peninsula near Downies. Overnight stop.

Day 5 Tra-na-Rosan to Errigal Hostel. The most direct route is about 27 miles, while going more coastward via Dunfanaghy still makes it less than 35.

Day 6 Errigal to Donegal via Dunglow and Glenties. Total 43 miles

Day 7 Donegal to Sligo via the North West Cycle Trail - around 40 miles.

This would mean we were in Sligo by Monday night, 30th May and homeward bound on the 31st. One or two comments suggest this may be a day too long and, if so, we could cut out the Tra-na-Rosan stop and go direct Londonderry to Errigal on day 4 and so arrive in Sligo on day 6 (29th ). This would make day 4 distance around about 50 miles if we went the direct route. I have to say that I would prefer not to miss this trip to N Donegal but will be guided by the majority. 

I attach the link to An Oige, the Irish YH organisation for you to view the hostels at Tra-n-Rosan, Errigal, Donegal City and Sligo.

http://www.anoige.ie/

What do you think?