After Connemara…Donegal

After we spent two weeks in Connemara, we were supposed to go to Venice. But, unfortunately, the COVID restrictions got worse so we canceled that part of our trip. It was actually a good idea because we would have got stuck in Germany anyway, as the second flight of the trip was canceled.

We decided we would head back to Northern Ireland but in a roundabout way. We booked a house on AirBnB in the Donegal area, but they had a calendar snafu. So instead of one night in the house, they offered their Father Ted Camper. The camper was parked on their land, right across the street from the beach. We were surrounded by sheep and cows, but had literally no phone signal at all!

Troy found out the hard way that the Irish don’t start their day until about 9am and that goes for the convenience stores too! He had to venture out for coffee without GPS and then when he found a gas station, they were closed! So he had to venture back and try to find the camper too.

We had no running water, propane or anything really, just a cassette toilet, in the camper. It got quite chilly at night too. But it was still fun to do a bit of camping in Ireland and the next day we checked into the AirBnB. Which was a really nice little house!

It was nice to take a shower, make some tea and watch TV in bed! Finding a bedroom with a TV was in short supply in Ireland. But the owner of this house was American, originally from Michigan. He married an Irish girl and they moved back together.

After Donegal, we headed to Northern Ireland. We visited Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and the Dark Hedges again. We stayed near Bushmills at a huge B&B that was more like a hotel than it was a B&B though and you had to pay extra for meals, etc.

From there we decided to head back south to pick up our puppy from Paddy!

The beach across the street!

The Father Ted Camper

Inside the Father Ted Camper and the most comfortable bed of the whole trip!

One of the owner’s mini horses. There was a whole herd of them!

One of the other neighbors. He came up to us at first, but then realized we didn’t have any food!