Day 181 - 28 August - Not a good start to today
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2011
1
182
231
Trip End
Oct 24, 2011
Newport, Connaught, Ireland
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Time to head off. So I decided to drive today. BAD mistake, VERY bad, we had parked in the back of the pub the night before and as I reversed out of the narrow driveway I scraped the back left wheel arch on the brick wall.
Not happy Jan, our beautiful now has a nasty scrape, but as Leon said it is not a really bad one, phew, I thought he would be angry, but as noone was hurt, never mind. But I was still upset and annoyed at myself. Leon finished the reverse and drove around the corner where I took over again.
Drove through Coleraine, then on through Londenderry or Derry depending where you came from. Up to the coast to have a look at the Mussenden Temple at Castlerock. On an fantastic piece of land overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Castlerock beach nearby.
It was built in 1785 and forms part of the estate of Frederick Augustus Hervey, the 4th earl of Briston, Bishop of Derry. Built as a library and modelled on the Temple of Vesta in Italy, it is dedicated to the memory of Hervey's cousin Frideswide Mussenden. When it was first built back from the edge of the cliff - apparently they could ride horse and carts around it, nowadays it looks like it could fall off the cliff anyday. Up the paddock from the library is the manor house called Downhill Castle. Would have been a very snazzy home back then.
Drove on down through Letterkenny bypassed Donegal and stopped at Ballina (not the one in New South Wales silly) for an early dinner in a lovely pub, watched Donegal get beaten by Dublin 8-6 in Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) football semi finals and on the other TV we saw Manchester United flog Arsenal 8-2 ouch.
With all that excitement over we drove on stopping at Louch Conn for photos then onto Newport where we decided to stay for the night. We did not have to be at our house sit until tomorrow and it wasn't far from here. Found a pub for the right price, booked in and went up the road for some sunset photos and nearby for a meal and had an early night.
