And I thought yesterday was a drive.
I woke up to people above us thumping around. The joys of a four-storey walk-up. Dragging everyone else out of bed, we headed up the road to Blas, a restaurant in the Gateway Lodge. It was a lovely way to start the day, as we had a long way ahead of us.
But before we did that, Alex needed to get some caches in. And that left the kids and I with a bit of time to kill. And I wanted to know what was the deal with that bridge that looked suspiciously railway-like, but had no obvious railway heritage.
Conveniently, there’s the Donegal Railway Museum. Yes, Donegal actually had a railway – the West Donegal Railway Company, which later became the Donegal Railway Company. It was a narrow gauge that ran until 1959. The last steam locomotive to visit, called “Drumboe”, is restored out front of the Museum.
Although I could not tour the museum for long, I did ask the two attendants about some of the history, and notably about the bridge. Which, yes, it was built by the railway, but did not carry any tracks – it was for the carriages that came from the station into the main town. I wasn’t entirely off my rocker.
We headed over the bridge and visited the Donegal Castle. Like many other castles, it’s partially in ruin. But with a government grant, they restored the tower to represent what it had been like in centuries past. And while it’s not a monumental castle (you might actually miss it if you weren’t paying attention), the restoration is wonderful and preserves much of its evolution from a simple keep to something more majestic in its later years.
We checked out a couple of the gift shops around the square, waiting for a bit as the rain chucked down without much warning. (Alex got caught in it.) We all headed back, packed up, then headed on our way east.
Fortunately, most of the route was on the N roads – the national highways. No crazy laneways with the fear of getting stuck. That said, the N roads are not the divided highways we’re comfortable with in North America – N roads go right into the hearts of towns and cities, so while it is a “highway”, you’re still negotiating turns, roundabouts, and traffic lights. It’s not quite as fast as one might think.
Our bravado with our esims came to a grinding halt as we approached Derry/Londonderry, and it was a geopolitical problem. For years, I had always thought that the River Foyle formed the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland – Derry was on the west side, Londonderry on the east. Apparently, having since looked at a map again, I’m an idiot. The “two cities” are, in fact, one … in the UK.
Why is this important? Because our Irish esims cut out not far over the border that we missed and suddenly we were without navigation and means of communication. That might seem a minor aggravation – the road signs leading us inland were quite clear – however, Alex wanted to stop in Derry.
You might have heard of a show called Derry Girls, a sitcom set in Derry around the end of The Troubles in the late 90s. There’s a large mural for the show that Alex wanted to see, and get some caches in.
This was a detail I missed coming into Derry. In fact, I was so laser-focused on getting to the east side of the river (thinking we were aiming for the Peace Bridge), that Alex became concerned that I wsa trying to bypass the city entirely. Thus we ended up heading back over the bridge to the west side. I was doing my very best to not sound annoyed or put out. But that wasn’t going to last.
Finding the mural was a challenge, because our data had cut out and we had no reasonable map for the city. And by “we”, I mean Alex – my phone hadn’t downloaded anything. I (stupidly) expected to have data in Derry and hadn’t worried about it. Worst still, parking was nigh impossible. Street after street after street was filled with cars, not a single vacancy. When the mural suddenly appeared, the only option was to drop Alex off and try round the block a few times. I should have had her take the girls, too, but they were uninterested.
Except… there was no “block” to round. There were roads that emptied onto the A2 that threatened to whisk us far away from Alex with no ability to find her again.
Now, obviously, this is me overreacting, something I can see clearly in retrospect. At the time, however – already frustrated by the lack of directions and the lack of parking – I sank quickly into the mindset that “this isn’t going to end well”. Logical Me, which had clearly decided to take a nap and leave Stupid Me in the driver’s seat, would have thought a bit more clearly and probably found a parking garage or take a different turn.
I ended up on the A2, swearing a blue streak. At the time, I was angry at Alex for wanting out and at the city for not having parking and me for … well, not thinking things through. (Again, Stupid Me.) I found a largeish roundabout that got us turned around. I turned back into the city at the place that I thought was where we got onto the A2, but wasn’t, and I kept right on swearing until I managed to (somewhat accidentally) find our way back to the mural.
All of us yelled at Alex to get back in the car so we wouldn’t lose her. I know she was grumpy about that, and I do feel bad for it, but with the difficulties there wasn’t really much of an option. Aside from losing Alex a second time, we had to be in Bushmills for 3pm.
The car was silent for some time as we headed back across the river and out into the countryside.
Our best landmark, in lieu of a map, were the signs for Coleraine, one of the larger towns that sat between us and Bushmills. From there, it was following signs towards “Giant’s Causeway”, since we knew that to be in the general area we were going. It wasn’t until we were 12 miles away that “Bushmills” started showing up on signs.
Fortunately, we had email instructions for our B&B already downloaded and had viewed enough of maps (plus Alex had been to Bushmills in the previous few years) that it wasn’t too hard to find it. Getting in was a slightly different challenge, as we had to find a key for the backdoor. It was a relief when the door opened.
The first order of business, after determining whose rooms were whose, was laundry. We were all running low and we had only two nights at Bushmills for things to dry out. (It should be noted that in a lot of Europe, there are washing machines, just a dearth of dryers. In most cases, things have to be hung up.) It wasn’t long before nearly every possible hanger was in use, including on the curtain railings in the picture window overlooking the main road into town.
It was already well past lunch when we locked up and headed into the town square in search of a meal. We were to meet Allen, Jean, and the rest of the family at the Bushmills Distillery at 3pm. It was a 15 minute walk from the B&B (if you’re asking if we deliberately planned that, I would counter with: we were going to tour a distillery), and we wanted to get something along the way.
But the afternoon was shutting down the “morning” cafes, including the sandwich shop. Still open was Hip Chips. It seemed reasonable. Emphasis on the past tense. Aside from taking far too long for being the only customers (it’s a take away with a sit-down area; that should have been our first sign), the fish was greasy, the chips flaccid. The place could only be a mainstay for drunkards.
We found Allen and Jean with two relatives in the Bushmills Visitors Centre. We were also expecting Alex’s cousin, Ian, but he was unable to attend. Thus Allen’s … um … I’m going to say “2nd cousin, twice removed”, only because I can’t remember what the actual relationship was, appeared to take us on the tour. But family is correct, albeit convoluted.
Julie is the head of the visitors group. She doesn’t normally do tours anymore, but has done them so many times that she knows the facility cold. And speaking of cold, that’s where we started – in the maturation building, which has stone walls 7 feet thick to maintain a constant internal temperature. It’s no longer in use – barrels had to be moved by hand up a hydraulic elevator, whereas now they’re moved around on palettes by a forklift – but it’s a good start to the tour.
And it came with some whiskey.
We then went to a different area where we could see the malting process, back up through the fermentation vaults, then down to the copper stills (that were about to vanish behind a lot of boarding whilst the area gets a renovation; we saw it on the last day before that started), then off to one of the warehouses (Bushmills has many in the area), before being brought into the bottling line. The line had closed for the day, otherwise the noise would have been something else.
Then we got to the bar. Because of course you end in the bar. And being family, we got to sample the good stuff. (Well, up to 21 year, anyway. Which is nothing to sneeze at.) And I will still say that I’m not a Scotch drinker (my ancestors are rolling in their graves) because I don’t much dig the peat smoke – but I don’t mind the Irish whiskey one bit.
21 year old? Check. A proper hot tawdy? Check. 21 and ginger ale? Checksh. Didsh I convincsh the girlsh to try shome whishkey? Yesh. Did they not likesh it mush? Alsho yesh. Did I (hic) drinks the resht? (Hic) I’m not shaying nothshin…
We might have bought too much stuff in the (very nice) gift ship with Julie’s “family discount”. We might have not walked particularly straight on the way back. (Well, maybe just me.)
We did two more loads of laundry when we got back, then headed out to explore. Being very close to Northern Ireland’s north coast, we didn’t have to go far to see Dunseverick Castle … or at least what’s left of it. It’s only a few clicks from the B&B, and there’s a rather nice viewpoint that overlooks the valley that goes way down to the … hey, where’s Choo Choo and Monkey going?! Come back! We don’t want to…
We all went down a windy, muddy path to the bottom of the cliff, where there were two inlets that had, once upon a time, probably been an inflow of the sea, washing out some of rock, creating the island upon which Dunseverick had been built. The same erosion (plus those pesky English going around, wrecking the place) had led to the castle’s collapse, leaving only fragments of the gatehouse remaining.
Following our partial tour of How To Train Your Dragon filming locations, Choo Choo marched up the path to the top of the island to see the ruins for herself. We all pretty much did the same thing. In fact, the only way to get Choo Choo away from the ruins was to bribe her with ice cream.
That took us out to Portstanley, a half hour away, to find Morelli’s, an Italian Ice Cream place that’s been around for over 100 years. It face the beach. I can only imagine how chaotic it must be on a hot summer weekend. (As it stood, it was a cool late June evening – not a lot of people.) It was only after we thoroughly enjoyed our snack that we went for dinner.
The Tesco down Coleraine Road had all the goods: gin, beer, premade meals and sausage rolls. I will say this for the British – they do premade like no-one else. Railway station sandwiches have more class and taste for £3 than I’ll get in a $20 sandwich in Calgary. Still, I’d have preferred a restaurant.
But we had to get back to the B&B. Not for the laundry. For Taskmaster.
Two years ago, we were in London on our first trip to the Isles with the kids. We were flipping through what was on TV in the evenings when we came across (what we would later discover to be) reruns of Taskmaster on Dave (that’s a television station, not some random guy with tattoos). We had become addicted to it in the months since, literally binge-watching the entire series (all on Youtube!) and begging for more.
And for the first time, we got to watch the show as it aired for the first time, not having to wait a day for the show to come out on Youtube. Yes, it’s a bit petty, but c’mon, it’s pretty awesome to see it “live” for a change.
