Day 8: The long drive to Doochary

Today sees the valiant team undertaking the longest trek of the whole trip.  We have to travel 350km from Kildimo to Doochary in Donegal  After a quick breakfast, and goodbyes to Patrick, we hit the road just after 9:30.  With a quick stop for petrol -thank goodness we rented a diesel, it only costs 1.45 euros ($2.15 Cd) per litre- we set off.

North of Galway we came across Claregalway Franciscian Friary.  This 13th century monastary was founded by the Normans.  We stretched our legs and took some great photographs.  Liz played us a great Chris DeBurgh song that captured the site perfectly.  With a quick bite of frosted queen cakes we set off again.

A view of the main church

Looking east to a castle tower

A side view of the Friary

We set the GPS for the the manor of Liz's ancestors in County Mayo near Ballina.  The coordinates we got for the manor took us to a small house in the middle of nowhere.  It wasn't the exact location, but Liz got an idea of the area they came from.  The rolling hills are different from the south in that there are no stone fences.  In fact, the countryside looked very much like Ontario.

We continued our journey north into counties Leitrim and finally Donegal. We saw ocean views and mountain views.  We stopped in the seaside town of Bundoran for a snack of coffee, lattes, hot chocolate and scones and sticky toffee pudding.  The scones were not as good as the ones yesterday in Adare.  We bought some supplies and set off on the final leg.

A view of the Atlantic near Sligo

Mountains north of Sligo

The ocean near Bundoran

The ocean in Bundoran

The mountains north of Donegal

Finally around 6:30 we arrived.  This house is very isolated in the hills.  The house is very new and has all the amenities of home.  A quick call to Jim helped us understand the heating and WiFi.  After a quick trip over the hills to Dungloe for frozen pizza and Irish Cream liqueur, we returned for cobb salad and pizza for dinner.  All in all, a long tiring day.