Inishowen 100

This is a 100 mile route around the Inishowen Peninsula, the northernmost of Donegal.

We first stopped at the Grianan of Aileach, which is a reconstructed stone fort on the site of an 8-9th century fort.

The views here…

… were amazing.

Always moving on…

… we briefly stopped at Dunree Head Fort.

We then drove on through Mamore Gap…

… first checking out where we’d come from…

… before turning to the road ahead -

I just loved this vista -

Next up was Glenevin Waterfall…

… which is on private land. There was a plaque there that told the story of a woman who wanted to retire in this area, bought property, and then found this beautiful waterfall back about 1/2 mile into the acreage. She subsequently cleared and paved the path, put footbridges and picnic areas in, so that everyone could enjoy this beauty. There was no charge for parking or admittance, but a donation box was at the entrance.

Continuing to move north up the coast…

… brings us to Pollan Strand, a 3 km stretch of beautiful fine sand.

I also had Five Finger Strand on my list of things to see. Little did I know that we would need to head down a narrow road (sensing a theme here?)…

… past huge sand dunes that had gotten covered in grass and sheep over the years…

… before reaching this hidden gem.

The sand dunes were massive (note the person on the beach above for scale)…

… as were the cliffs ringing the bay. This next picture shows the beach and bay from above -

So this is looking back south or west along the coast where we’d been…

… while this view is looking north toward Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland -

And I’m still finding orchids!

And just to share a little peek into the process :-)

There was a short walk along the coast here to a site dubbed “Hell’s Hole” -

This next picture shows how the farms stretch right to the cliffs, and how narrow the roads are. See the road in the middle of the picture? Now picture yourself driving along it, unable to see anything except the 5 foot high stone walls on either side of the car, and coming up to a blind corner…

Steve had so much fun! (not)

Anyway, our last stop was to check out Kinnegoe Bay; yet another of the innumerable sand beaches on the Donegal coastline.

Well, we headed out of the rolling hills of Donegal to enter Northern Ireland, where we stayed in Derry, which is the subject of my next post.