Starting the WAW

Day 1 - Mon 12 Oct - east of Sligo

The Sligo region has a bit of everything.  Sitting on the coast just above Ireland's central western bump it has beaches, mountains, lakes and monuments.  It's a bit hard to decide what to see, and of course the weather plays a part.

With a misty start we kick off with the Gleniff Horseshoe Drive - towering cliffs, lovely waterfalls (could we be in NZ? - easily)

and a baryte mine and mill (definitely not).  Barium sulphate is valuable for industrial chemistry and manufacturing but we don't have mineable deposits in NZ - though interestingly baryte crystals have been found in Te Aroha's Tui mine.

We stop to fill up with petrol, and the Leon's computer says oil is getting low.  The car's only done 18,000km, and clearly it wasn't topped up before we picked it up.  I look for a dipstick to verify, but there isn't one.  At least in the engine bay I see it needs SAE 0W-20.  Seems a bit thin to me, but clearly I'm old school.  Does the service station have it?  Nah - only 10W-40.  It's old school too - it only stocks oil for last century's cars with dipsticks.  The Leon will have to carry on a bit longer.  It's still two bars above the Low level.

We're a few minutes out of the service station and see the Garda's flashing blue lights ahead.  There's been a nasty four vehicle crash and we're diverted down a side road.  Sobering to think what might have happened had we been travelling half an hour earlier.

The highlight of the day is the Benbulben forest walk.  The valleys here have been carved by glaciers and Benbulben is a classic example.

The mist adds to the moodiness of the place.  On one side we have the valley climbing to a towering tabletop mountain with adventurous sheep on the top slope

and on the other a forest reduced to matchsticks.

This is similar to the Kaimai buster.  Easterly winds accelerate down the slope taking out anything in their path, particularly large shallow-rooted trees in a bog.  This particular damage was from Storm Éowyn, which caused catastrophic forest damage across Ireland in the winter of 24/25.  Sligo was one of the hardest‑hit areas, and the clean‑up is still underway.

Where the trees have survived it's like stepping back in time.  What could appear here?  The Nazgûl?  The four horses of the apocalypse?  

Hopefully not - I'd prefer to see Enbarr galloping towards us from out of the sea.

This would be a horse worth having.  A horse that can run across land and sea without slowing, faster than the wind, never tiring, never stumbling, and able to carry its rider to the Otherworld.  Now that might be interesting.  The Otherworld isn't the afterlife - it's a parallel, supernatural realm that exists alongside the human world - a hidden dimension of gods, spirits, eternal youth, and altered time.  I'm willing to give it a try.

The cloud lifts as we turn the corner and head towards the Yeats trail.

Yeats? I have to concede a bit of ignorance on this one.  English never was my forte at school.  After a number of C- essays my Te Awamutu College English teacher made the rather ascerbic comment on my report, "Man does not live by science alone".  My maths teacher was much more generous.

William Butler Yeats - Ireland's greatest poet, a Nobel prize winner, a man who believed passionately in the spiritual power of landscape and took a lot of his inspiration from the Sligo area.  For Yeats, Benbulben was a symbol of myth, destiny, and the supernatural.  

He invokes the spirit of Enbarr in his poetry:

We rode on the sea’s edge; the sea

Drew back and we rode on the shore…

...

And the horse that carried us

Made no sound on the sands…

...

We rode where the light was woven and spun…

I can see why as we follow his trail.

On our way home we take in the Glencarr waterfall, 

another local inspiration for Yeats in his poem "Stolen Child".

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Just let me enjoy the imagery and don't ask me to write an essay about it!

Day 2 - understanding the Wild in the WAW

As we wake the rain is coming down in sheets.  The wind is howling and peals of thunder echo across the valley.  This doesn't look good for our plan to visit the Sliabh Liag (Slieve League) cliffs.  But we're starting to understand Irish weather, and how to interpret the weather forecasts.  If we can arrive around lunchtime we might be able to appreciate them in sunshine, or at least an absence or rain.

To get there we have to backtrack a bit to Ardara.  Strictly a bit further north than we needed to go, but this gives us the opportunity to drive the amazing Glenglesh valley in the Dartry mountains

When we get down to Killybegs we head west until we fall into the Atlantic Ocean.  The Sliabh Liag cliffs rise almost vertically 600m above sea level, but we have to earn the ability to see them by hiking 2km from the car park.  Mercifully the rain has stopped, but to compensate the wind has increased.  It is blasting off the Atlantic so hard we're almost knocked off our feet.  It's so strong that streams running down into the sea are blown back up the cliff, drenching everyone walking the path.

It's at about this point I'd like to reach for Fragarach.

Forged by the gods, it has a number of remarkable properties:

• The Truth-Forcer: When the tip is held against an opponent's throat, it compels them to answer any question truthfully and strips them of the ability to move or lie
• Unstoppable Blade: No armour, shield, or wall can block it, and it can cut through any material effortlessly
• Wind Command: The wielder can place the surrounding winds under their command
• Unhealable Wounds: Any wound inflicted by Fragarach is fatal or impossible to heal by normal means.

I'm after the third property right now, but no doubt the others would come in handy too.

With no Fragarach readily to hand, we admire the wind blasting the Atlantic onto the cliffs instead.

We just have time on the way home to see the south side of Lough Erne.  Both a scenic area and a major renewable‑energy area, thanks to the Erne hydroelectric scheme and multiple wind farms clustered around the lower and upper loughs.  It's good getting up close and personal, and at one stage it seems we're driving through the step-up transformers in the hydro substation.  With pics of substations and wind turbines holding limited interest, I offer this much more attractive if windblown pic instead.

And the view when we get to the Cliffs of Magho overlooking Erne is stunning.

Just down the road from our BnB are the Creevykeel stones, one of the finest Court Cairns in Ireland, and built around 3,500 BCE.  It was used as a ceremonial and mortuary site for rituals, gatherings, and ancestor veneration.  

I like that latter idea - perhaps the grandkids can take some inspiration.

Day 3 - heading to Galway

It's a long haul past Galway to our BnB and it's still blowing a gale, so we have to pick our route carefully.  We decide against Strandhill beach (just a surf beach) and the Lough Gill scenic loop  (done Erne) and head south to Louisburgh.  This puts us at the start of the fantastic Doolough valley drive to Leenaun.  Think wind funnelled by a valley.  What was already gusting to 100kph was so amplified it was blowing sheets of water off the lake.

It's such a spectacular sight that I'm preferring the current weather to brilliant sunshine.

Decision point at Leenaun.  Do we have time to hang a right and head through Connemara to the coast?  Yes - we're only in Ireland once, so on to Clifdon and the upper Sky Rd to the lookout.  

Bleak, spectacular and wild - we can definitely confirm that the Wild in the WAW isn't false advertising.

Apart from rush hour traffic in Galway our trip to Frank's BnB was uneventful.  A small bedsit but fine for our purposes, and the wifi is great.  

Compare that to our previous place where the wifi signal was so weak they had to give us a 4G router, and that promptly ran out of data.  More ICT advice freely given.

Tomorrow I catch up with my mate Axel, and I hope Pauline doesn't get too bored with all the geek talk.  Say tuned.

North by Northwest and the land of Giants

Day 1 - Friday 9 Oct - heading north 

Destination Sligo on the west coast, but a little to cover in between first.

We considered spending some time in Belfast.  In particular, there's Titanic Belfast - a visitor experience built on the historic slipways where the RMS (also SS) Titanic was designed and launched.  Fascinating no doubt.  But it would take time from our limited itinerary, and another big city where there's a small but not insignificant chance of sectarian violence, so we'll skirt around it.

We set the GPS for Carrickfergus on the northern side of the city, and take the coast road up to Torr Head.  Squally showers are blowing through, turbine blades are spinning wildly, and patches of sunshine amongst the clouds make for some dramatic scenery.  

Pauline is particularly keen to go to Whitehead for the picturesque houses on the waterfront.

Shades of Burano in Venice.  But Whitehead isn't unique.  As we travel north we see many groups of houses similarly coloured.

Lunchtime sees us in Larne, and every traveller's dream.  A free parking space with sea views, a coffee cart, and clean toilets.  If it hadn't been for the wind and wet picnic seats from the previous squall we'd have had lunch closer to the beach.

Good thing Pauline's driving.  She's watching the road while I'm chasing rainbows.  Might we stumble upon a leprechaun's pot of gold at the next headland?

Sadly not, but we do stumble upon a repurposed phone box.  Everyone's got a mobile phone these days so why not turn the old phone boxes into information centres or book swap hubs?

Have to wonder why they put in an arched tunnel right on the coast rather than just making a cutting.  Perhaps it's historical, or cheaper than a high retaining wall if the ground is crumbling.  

Our BnB is quite unassuming.

Modern inside, but the floor-level oven offends Pauline's kitchen design sensibilities.  Fancy pulling a large hot roast out of that!  But it is designed that way - there's a hob on top so it can't be installed higher.

There are some interesting quirks about British and Irish homes.  Often the kitchen doubles as the laundry, and sometimes there's a washing machine included with the appliances.  The kitchen sink does double duty as a laundry tub, so a plastic dish in the sink is used for washing dishes, while the sink itself is used for washing smalls.  Increasingly historical now, but the tradition persists.

With a huge stock of older houses their energy efficiency is poor, even though many have been retrofitted with double glazing.  Boilers/HWCs try to keep the interior warm by pumping hot water through radiators.  It's dropped to 5°C overnight but the interior temperature is hardly balmy at 17°.  We're invited to light the fire if we wish, but it's easier to put on a jersey.  With old housing stock, inefficient heating and no cooling these guys are going to have a hard time as energy costs and summer temperatures bite with climate change.  But in NZ we've got nothing to crow about - just a bit of luck that our winters are milder.  Our building standards are poor, and our idiot Government has pushed improvements to the standard into the next decade.  We can still build code-compliant houses that have cold, mouldy rooms in winter and are furnaces in summer.

The other interesting observation is that they're all low pressure hot water systems.  To improve guest experiences most BnBs have a pressure booster like this:

It's not a gas califont and it doesn't heat the water - it just mixes hot and cold and boosts the pressure.

But it's the location of our BnB place that counts.  We're on the north coast near Bushmills - and according to our travel guide it means we're soon going to make our acquaintance with this guy, or his family.  Just like my Mum and Dad did decades ago - will be good to follow in their footsteps.

Day 2 - Decisions

It's wet and blustery.  95%+ chance of rain, winds are averaging 40kph and gusting to at least twice that.  We decide to postpone our appointment with Finn and go for a drive along the coast instead.  We'd anticipated situations like this - travelling in Ireland in October means we have to expect schedule changes, and have factored in additional time as a result.  And every now and then it's nice to have a sleep-in and relaxing morning rather than an insistent imperative to hit the next tourist spot.

We head back east along the coast and take in Dunseverik castle.  So ruined even the black-faced sheep can't take shelter. Whitecaps and swell are very evident though.

Ballintoy Harbour gets us up close to the swell pounding through the rocks.

Carrick-a-rede (rock of the casting) Island sits at a point where Atlantic salmon migrate close to shore.  In 1755 salmon fishermen created the first rope bridge spanning the 20m wide chasm, 30m above the sea.  The first incarnation had a single handrail and wide slats, but the latest 2008 version better complies with safety standards.  It's a popular tourist attraction, though still daunting.  Apparently some tourists can't contemplate the return journey and need to be taken off the island by boat.

We'd considering booking tickets long ago, but for kiwis bridges like this aren't so much of a novelty, and at £17 per ticket ($80 for us both) we thought we'd spend our holiday cash more wisely.  A good call - it was so windy the bridge was closed today.  

The Salmon of Knowledge is a bit pissed.  He advises me that in the 1960s, catches of up to 300 of his compatriots a day were common, but stocks collapsed due to overfishing and pollution. The last salmon was caught here in 2002.

We content ourselves with pictures instead.

With time to spare in the afternoon we figure a trip along the north coast to the west is in order.  Sea foam is being blasted up the cliff faces and across the road, which makes for a novel driving experience.  

The platform cantilevering out from the cliff edge at Portrush is fun.

Is that a wind turbine I can just see in the top left?  Yup - a lucky inclusion.

After a coffee at Lost & Found cafe where we can watch the surf crash into the bay without being blown away we head further west to the Magilligan Martello Tower at Point Bar.

Martello towers are named after a fort in Corsica which successfully withstood bombardment from the Royal Navy in 1794.  The Brits were so impressed they copied the design and replicated it over 200 times.  There's even one in Sydney Harbour.

This one was built in 1812 to fend off Napoleon, and then a threat from the USA associated with maritime disputes and trade restrictions.  A pill box was added during WW2.  But the garrison never fired a shot in anger - the last attempt to invade Ireland (other than the British themselves) was by the French in 1798.

There was just one little potential problem driving out to Point Bar.  We go past the Magilligan Prison, which sits in the middle of the British Army's active live firing range used for small‑arms and heavy‑weapons training.  Security cameras capture all vehicles travelling up and down the road.  We're driving a hire car with Dublin plates.  We could well be suspicious.  Does our presence trigger a numberplate lookup and research into our identities?  Does it trigger a machine gun aimed in our direction?  I have to wonder.

So we've done the north coast of Ireland from Torr Head in the east to Point Bar in the west, and everything in between.  Except for one final visit.

Day 3 - Giants and west

Good call - Sunday morning is sunny and the wind's dropped to 10kph.  Perfect for a walk to catch up with Finn McCool.  We park at the local pub for £10, knowing we can cash the receipt in for refreshments after our visit.  We ask the way to Finn's place.  "Oh, just down those steps and out the causeway". 

Now the causeway is made of giant stepping stones, leading all the way to Scotland.  However it appears that the vast majority of the world's geologists claim they're not cleverly crafted hexagonal stepping stones made by a giant at all.  Instead they claim they were  formed when thick lava cooled, contracted, and cracked into geometric shapes about 50–60 million years ago.  

What a bunch of academic, socialist wokesters!  All they do is compete for research grants funded by hard-working taxpayers.

Anyone can plainly see these stones have been hand-crafted.  

Just like the parking lot at the Hotel.

Just look at those flat tops, tight joints, and step‑like terraces.  

I meet one of Finn's descendants nearby, a big lad he is too.  He says he's got good geological knowledge and is a reliable source of truth.  He has no idea who Big Giant is.  "Never heard of them and never received any money from them", he says.  Well, not much anyway.

Here's the true, factual, carefully researched document about what really happened.

The Causeway was actually built by Irish warrior giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool), so he could fight rival Scottish giant, Benandonner.  This explains both the stones in Antrim and the matching ones in Scotland.  Beat that, geologists!

However when Fionn saw Benandonner approaching over the causeway, he realised the Scottish giant was far bigger than he was.  Fionn fled home, terrified.

This is where his wife Oonagh devised a plan.  A plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel (thanks Blackadder).  Anyway, I digress.

She disguised Fionn as a giant baby and laid him in a cradle.  When Benandonner arrived and saw the enormous “infant” he panicked: If the baby is this big… what size is the father?

Benandonner fled back to Scotland, ripping up the causeway behind him - leaving only the ends at Antrim and Staffa.

He even left his boot behind in the rush.

Which leaves us with just two observations.

• Cognitive dissonance be damned.  I need to believe!
• It pays to have a smart wife.  Pauline couldn't agree more!

We come off the causeway

and head for the organ pipes.  I'm sure I don't need to tell you how these were made.

All in all quite a surreal experience.

The cliff walk back increased the heart rate a bit.

The hooded crows take it all in their stride though.

I'm glad we did the Giant's Causeway early.  An hour later it was full of tourists bussed in from Belfast and Dublin, and from a distance could be mistaken for the Muriwai gannet colony.

After satisfying flat whites and a huge piece of cake at the Hotel, we hit the road west.  The direct route this time.  Like Belfast, we're through Londonderry without stopping, out the other side, and in no time back in the Republic and measuring speed in kph again.

First stop the Grianan of Aileach, a stone ringfort on top of Greenan mountain, with panoramic views in all directions.  It was built in the 6th-7th century where it was royal seat of the Kingdom of Ailech, a major Gaelic stronghold, and was significantly restored in the 19th century after being plundered first by the Vikings then by the King of Munster.

Good to see a restoration that appears reasonably consistent with the original.  We saw one in Crete years ago that bore little resemblance to the original, and was more the product of the architect's imagination.  

We're heading to the top left headland next.

Where the Fanad Head lighthouse is - the northernmost tip of the WAW (Wild Atlantic Way) we're about to start exploring.

Follow those signs!

Our BnB is near Cliffoney, just north of Sligo, an excellent base for two days of exploring.

Unassuming, wifi is rubbish, the fridge wasn't on and the door doesn't lock, but a nice spot in the country.

After a great day there's a bit of an anti-climax.  Pauline's booked a well-regarded seafood restaurant to save us cooking and dishwashing after a long day.  Anticipating wild Atlantic salmon on the menu, we were disappointed to find the dinner menu had just been replaced with the lunch menu.  Battered fish and chips for main - no thanks.  The prawn cocktail had one real but lukewarm prawn on top, and the remaining tinned prawns and dressing was transported direct from the seventies.  Every now and then you get a travel disappointment - just adds to the overall experience, and something to look back on with a laugh.

The next post will be all about the WAW - stay tuned.

From the Republic to the North

 Day 1 - Wed 7 Oct - heading north

We're setting off from the Boyne Valley, but not before we cover off a major battle that continues to shape Irish identity.

Cast your mind back to 1690.  King William III (William of Orange) was in conflict with deposed King James II.  James, a Catholic had fled to France and sought French assistance to reclaim his crown.  His Jacobite troops engaged the Protestant Williamites in the Battle of the Boyne near Oldbridge, just west of Drogheda.  With superior numbers, troop experience and tactics the Williamites won, driving James back to France.

At stake were the English, Scottish, and Irish crowns, Protestant vs Catholic power, and European geopolitics.  William's victory also has ramifications to this day, and will continue to be a thorn in Ireland's reunification.  From the Unionist/Loyalist perspective in Northern Ireland, the victory represents constitutional stability, civil and religious liberty, and is a part of their British heritage.  From the Nationalist/Republican perspective the loss marks the beginning of political subjugation, the loss of Irish autonomy and centuries of discriminatory laws.  I don't think Irish reunification will happen any time soon.  Still too much bad blood, and the Troubles are still simmering under the surface.

We watch a re-enactment of the battle, view the battle site, the stables

and some of the weapons used.

The gardens next to the visitor centre were a treat too.

From a motorist's perspective, there's very little to tell that you've crossed from the EU to the UK.  No signage (at least on the minor roads) and certainly no passport control.  The only clues are the number plate formats, the speed limits changing from kph to mph, and fuel prices changing from Euros to Sterling.  Petrol in the Republic was around €2.00/l (around $4.00) and in Northern Ireland it's much the same at £1.70/l.  I hear people are squawking at home because it's hit $3.50/l.  Kiwis should be so lucky!

There are two primary reasons for heading to this part of Ireland, just south of Belfast.

The first is the Ring of Gullion, a volcanic ring dyke.  I had to look that one up.  Essentially, an ancient volcano's caldera collapsed, magma intruded, and formed a circular wall of hard igneous rock.  Over time, softer surrounding rock eroded away, leaving a ring of hills.

For us it delivered a 13km scenic drive, fortunately one-way given the narrowness of the road, with panoramic views across the ring dyke.  We were lucky with the weather - beautifully sunny on the way up, but it pelted down over lunch which saw us racing from a picnic table to the car, then it cleared just in time for the views.  Pauline was in charge of photography and just managed to crop out an extensive wind farm to the right.  

Our BnB cottage is unassuming.

But the view over Newcastle and out to the Irish Sea from the kitchen window is the best of our journey so far.

Day 2 - The Mourne Mountains and Donn Cuailnge

The second reason for heading to this part of Ireland is the Mourne Mountains, between the Ring of Gullion and the coast.  It's a striking mountain range with granite peaks, wild moorland, deep valleys, and coastal views all packed into a small, easily explored area.  The weather's best in the morning so we hit the road early, and follow the coast road south to Greencastle.  Across the Carlingford Lough is the Cooley Peninsula, and I'm keen to spot the offspring of a famous brown bull.  Unfortunately we're pressed for time and can't take the ferry across, so let's try a telephoto.

A bit far away for any detail.  A shame - I'm sure any fine brown bulls from the Cooley Peninsula would be of interest to our beef farmers for livestock improvement.  They have quite a reputation.

Up into the mountains to the Yellow Water picnic site, but it's windy & cold, and the fairies have long since departed the stone circle.  We decide to do the same.

With its extensive valleys, the Mournes are particularly suited to water reservoirs, serving nearby towns and even as far away as Belfast.

It's mostly sheep up here, but every now and then you come across cattle.  Notice the feeding station at the bottom right.  While it looks green, there's not a lot of autumn feed in the paddock.

The Spelga dam had to be built in a V-shape due to the crumbling granite on the valley edges.

The bellmouth overflow at the Silent Valley reservoir looks like it leads straight to hell.

Notice how low the lake level is.  Ireland suffered from the same dry conditions over summer as England.

It's unlikely we'll ever get to see the Great Wall of China, so we settle for the next best thing - the Mourne Wall.  Built between 1926 and 1932 it's a remarkable piece of engineering.  Stretching for 32km over 15 summits, it's an 0.8m thick wall around 1.5m high built to keep livestock out of the reservoir catchment.  Water treatment wasn't sophisticated in those days, so this was the best way to keep drinking water free of contamination.

Not visible from space, but impressive all the same.

The rain has set in, so a brief dash to the coast at Annalong is followed by a mid-afternoon retreat to the BnB.  Which gives me just enough time to describe our third reason for visiting this part of Ireland, and viewing the Cooley Peninsula.  All thanks to our excellent guide.

Recall how we've already learnt how warrior Queen Meadbh stole a brown bull from the Ulstermen, and met her end from a single stone from Forbaid's slingshot.  Now we find out a bit more about the brown bull, and why its progeny might be something to be reckoned with.

The full story starts a long, long time ago, and goes by the name of The Táin Bó Cúailnge - The Cattle Raid of Cooley.

Queen Medb of Connacht and her husband Ailill compare their wealth.  Ailill owns a magnificent white bull, the Finnbhennach.  Medb has no equal bull - and she cannot bear being “one cow less” than her husband.  She learns that the only bull equal or superior is the Brown Bull of Cooley (Donn Cuailnge) in Ulster.  Medb decides she must have it, no matter the cost.

She sends messengers to borrow the bull peacefully.  The deal is agreed - until one messenger boasts that Medb would have taken it by force anyway.  The bull’s owner is insulted.  The deal collapses, and Medb launches a full‑scale invasion of Ulster to steal the bull.

Ulster’s warriors cannot fight.  They are struck by the pangs of Macha, a curse placed generations earlier when the men of Ulster forced a pregnant woman to race horses.  The curse leaves them helpless for five days and four nights.

Only one warrior is unaffected: Cú Chulainn, the teenage champion of Ulster.  He must defend the entire province alone.  Cú Chulainn does not fight armies directly.  He invokes the ancient Irish law of single combat - one champion at a time.  He fights duel after duel and wins every one.

The most heartbreaking moment of the Táin (cattle raid) is the duel between Cú Chulainn and Ferdiad, his foster brother and closest friend.  Medb manipulates Ferdiad into fighting.  The two men battle for three days in the ford at Ardee.  They know each other’s techniques.  They love each other.  They cannot stop.

Cú Chulainn kills Ferdiad with a gae bolga, a barbed spear thrown from underwater.  Cú Chulainn collapses over Ferdiad’s body, weeping.

Eventually, Ulster’s warriors recover and drive Connacht’s army back.

But the climax is not between humans — it is between the two bulls:

• Donn Cuailnge - the Brown Bull of Cooley
• Finnbhennach - the White‑horned Bull of Ailill.

The bulls clash across Ireland, tearing up the landscape.  Donn Cuailnge kills Finnbhennach, but dies from his wounds.

Their battle symbolises the futility of war.  Yet here we are aeons later still fighting.  You'd have to say we're slow learners.

Tomorrow we're off to the north coast to learn more about Irish and Scottish giants.  Stay tuned.