Malin Head to Bushmills
WOKE to a phenomenal morning. Sunshine, blue skies and light winds. Donald and Elma at the Malin View B/B looked after us perfectly and we set off after another brilliant Full Irish.
We decided to follow the coast road as much as possible on the way to the little ferry at Greencastle which would take us over the estuary of the Foyle to MacGilligan Point in Ulster, and what a hilly road it turned out to be. Hill after hill had us creaking and the 25 miles or so took us a good two and a half hours. Didn’t even have time for a morning coffee…
Interestingly we both felt a little sad leaving Ireland, indeed we were more than a little sad, we felt very sad. It had been a tremendous trip and Ireland had been so good to us. But it wasn’t over. we were keen to see what Ulster had to offer us.
The problem was we both felt a sense of anti climax. We had finished the end to end, the rest of the trip just feels like a necessary addendum, although we have the delights of the Causeway Coast yet to come. Indeed, we had a taste of it today. From MacGilligian Point we followed the road with a prison wall on one side and a military firing range on the other. It wasn’t the best introduction to Northern Ireland, but after that we had a delightful bike ride down to Coleraine, much of it on an excellent Sustrans bike track.
At one point we passed through an attractive little village called Downhill, and we girded our loins for the inevitable. A big, steep climb out of the village. We passed through Coleraine, missed the b- road to Bushmills and ended up riding through the extensive golf courses and caravan sites of Portrush.
We reached Bushmills, home of the most excellent Irish Whiskey, feeling a little bushed from the 53 miles and looking forward to a hot shower and a good meal. It almost wasn’t to be. We tried several B/B’s but they were all full. Eventually we found the Youth Hostel and what an excellent hostel it is. The warden (I think his title is manager these days) gave us a twin room en suite and we made ourselves very comfortable. The problem was there was nowhere to eat. We tried the local hotel but the prices were exhorbitant, although we did manage a couple of pints in the bar where the barman made us very welcome. And, do you know what? Hamish got his first ginger beers of the trip. It wasn’t Crabbies, and it wasn’t even alcoholic but the poor wee soul was beside himself with delight.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t so excited when he saw the prices on the menu so, not to be proud about it, we left and visited the chippy. We sat outside in the street with the biggest cod suppers you’ve ever seen. They were magnificent.
So now its back to the YH with a couple of bars of Duncans Orange Cream for a pudding and the prospect of an early night. We feel Bushmills hasn’t quite lived up to its billing so we’re not taking any chances for tomorrow night. It’s our last night of the trip so we booked into the Londonderry Arms Hotel in Carnlough, just 14 miles north of Larne, the last of the big spenders. That’ll leave us with a short ride into Larne on Friday morning for the ferry and coach to Glasgow. Then, it’ll be back to auld claes and porridge…
Bushmills to Carnlough
Well, that’s about it. Hamish and I arrived in Carnlough, just north of Larne, earlier this afternoon after a harder than normal ride round the Giro d’Italia course on the Causeway Coast. We only have 13 miles to cycle into Larne tomorrow and our ferry back to Scotland.
All the pink Giro flags and bunting is still flying and all along the route we saw pink coloured bikes in gardens, outside halls and on the hillsides. We even came across some pink sheep near the Giant’s Causeway. It looks like Northern Ireland really took this event to its heart earlier this month.
It felt a harder ride than normal because of several things. After a couple of glorious days the weather dawned dour, grey and cold. Also, I suspect we were suffering slightly from a sense of anti climax which I hinted at yesterday. We had endured some little problems in Bushmills but had overcome them. For example, Hamish’s rear tyre went very soft yesterday and we wondered if he another slow puncture, but by this morning the tyre wasn’t any softer we he pumped it up and it appeared to be fine.
Also, because we stayed in a youth hostel last night we had to go out and find some breakfast this morning. No Full Irish today. We got a couple of filled baps in the Copper Kettle, and set off with the normal full belly, but almost immediately we found ourselves climbing. Never good first thing in the morning, especially when you’re also riding into a cold wind.
We thought we’d do the tourist thing and visit the Giant’s Causeway since Hamish hadn’t been there for about 30 years. I visited the attraction last September and was, to be honest, underwhelmed. I was no more “whelmed” this time, and neither was Hamish. We decided we preferred out columnar basalt in somewhere like Kilt Rock on Skye or Fingal’s Cave on Staffa.
Coffee time found us in Ballycastle and after that we had another big climb, up over the high moors and through the Ballypatrick forest before a long and chilly descent down to Cushendall. After that it was an easy, flat coastal road all the way Carnlough where we’ve booked in to the splendid Londonderry Arms for the night. We felt we deserved a wee treat.
The Causeway Coast is a lovely route to cycle and it’s a pity we didn’t experience it in better weather, or in a better frame of mind. Partly because of the Giro, the roads are in great condition and some of the views are superb. The section today between Ballycastle and Cushendall, although hard work, was stunning, and it was a delight to bomb along the coastal road between Cushendall and Carnlough at speeds averaging about 16 mph. With touring bikes and panniers that’ no bad at all.
Tomorrow we have an 11-mile stretch to do into the ferry port of Larne, then its home to Scotland.
Some final thoughts
HAMISH and I have both agreed that our Irish end to end cycle trip, from Mizen Head in the south to Malin Head in the north, was probably the best of the three end to ends we’ve done in the past three years.
Land’s End to John O’Groats was a bit of a learning curve, the first long bike trip we had attempted at just short of a thousand miles and the ride between La Manche and the Med through France was, in some ways, too easy. I don’t think either of us would want to spend days biking along canal towpaths again – too similar, too flat, too boring.
The ride through Ireland was very different to the other two. For a start the quality of landscape was sustained all the way with perhaps only a slight dip on the day between Sligo and Donegal, but there were other attractions on that day, like visiting the grave of WB Yeats beneath ‘Ben Bulbin’s bare head.’
And the landscapes were fabulous – everything from great coastal scenery – Mizen Head, Cliffs of Moher, Aran Islands, Malin Head, to some lovely mountainous country – Caha Mountains, Moll’s Gap and Killarney National Park, the Reeks, James Joyce Country – to that green, rolling, agricultural land where the fields are still separated by hedgerows vibrant with wild flowers, particularly my own favourite, the blood red fuchsia (‘where the red fuchsia weeps’ – John Spillane) which seems to grow alongside every minor road, intermingled with thorn bushes.
I really enjoyed cycling through this kind of landscape, so much more pleasant on the eye than the prairie fields we see so much in Scotland and England, the industrial agriculture that decimates wildlife.
But while the landscapes were varied and generally superb it was the people who will leave the lasting impression. What is it about the Irish that makes them so friendly, and inquisitive, and such wonderful conversationists? I lost count, on our first couple of days, of the number of people who simply approached us, asked what we were up to, then entertained us with tales and stories and anecdotes. I have to confess I’m not the most sociable of people but I simply loved this aspect of Ireland. More than anything else it was… welcoming and warm!
Something else that we noticed and remarked on was a sense of affluence. Now, I know there is poverty in Ireland as there is anywhere; I’m fully aware that the Celtic Tiger left many Irish folk unable to compete; and I know that Irish had to be bailed out when the international banking world decided to collectively shit on us all, but Ireland seems to have come out of it all better than us. (As has Iceland).
We found it interesting that no matter where we went we rarely had less than four bars on our mobile phones. At every B/B and hostel we stayed at, no matter how remote (the Aran Islands, west coast of Clare, north Donegal etc) we had Wi-Fi connection to the Internet. Here at home in Newtonmore I can’t use my mobile phone – no signal!!!
In total we cycled just over 600 miles, but 192 miles of that was getting to Mizen Head from Cork (a wonderful two days of cycling along the south coast – highly recommended) and reaching Larne from Malin Head (via Co Antrim’s Causeway Coast, another wonderful bike ride, particularly the stretch from Ballycastle to Cushendal)
We took two weeks for the entire trip so we weren’t exactly pushing it, but you wouldn’t want to push it in Ireland. It’s a place for slowing down, enjoying the scenery, blethering to people, listening to the music and soaking in the Celtic atmosphere of a land that will always be, for me at least, cloaked in romance and legend.
And the highlights? I’m no great lover of climbing hills but I loved to ride over Moll’s Gap in County Kerry where we had our first view of Carrauntoohill, Irland’s highest mountain which I’ve previously climbed a couple of times, and our visit to the Aran Islands, one of the most curious landscapes I’ve walked through; simple yet complex, wild yet lived-in, romantic yet rough. Craggy Island it may be, but it certainly doesn’t feel desolate or dour.
One of the problems with cycling through a land is that now and again you want to stop for a while and explore a bit. I’ve made note of a number of places I want to go back to and I’ll do that later in the summer. My wife Gina and I have dropped the plans we had and I’m taking her back to Ireland to show her some of the places Hamish and I passed through, and hopefully spend a bit more time in them to get to know them better. I can’t offer a bigger compliment to Ireland than that. Go and see it for yourself, and take your bike. It’s a fine way to see the country.
