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Ireland pt. III

Donegal

By Elias Julian

November 1^st, 2016

✨Next stop, donegal✨

After the Cliffs of Moher and a few nights in Galway our spirits were riding pretty high, despite knowing that Donegal was the last leg of our trip before heading back to Dublin. Plus, it helped that I was more excited about Donegal than any place we’d been yet. Just look at those mountains.

Oh, and our airbnb was 🙌🙌🙌

🐑🐱🐑🐱🐑🐱

Our home base for exploring Donegal was in Fintown. A tiny little town that’s basically central in the county, so we were pretty equidistant from everything. And our little cabin was perfect. Honestly could have just stayed there for the whole trip and been perfectly content. Plus our host’s cat hung out on the porch the whole time. Next to the sheep farm. Needless to say, my animal loving wife was elated.

still not sure of our feline friends name. pretty chill though

After dropping our gear off at our airbnb and meeting our hosts, we head over to the next town to pick up a few supplies and food for the next day. No chips and Guinness where we’re going. Well, if we *really* tried I bet we could find some, but who doesn’t love a picnic on the trail? And we caught an amazing sunset while we we’re out, so pulled over and snapped a few shots from the side of the road. Amazing.

💤💤💤

Probably the best nights sleep of the trip. In all honesty, the bed was not very comfortable, but there must’ve been something in the air. Or I guess it could’ve been the exhaustion. Actually it was probably the exhaustion. Great nights sleep though.

our little sleep nook, and my forever-camera-shy wife

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Glenveagh National Park

Slept in a little bit, sipped some coffee on the porch, took in some of the amazing views, then set out for Glenveagh National Park. We didn’t want to spend the whole day there (although I totally could), so we did the short 2km nature walk. Basically a loop that starts and finishes at the visitor center. We didn’t climb any real elevation, but still got some great views of the park.

🚶

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hail my hyperlite pack that I took everywhere we went. the best.

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The thing that struck me most, was just how opposite the landscape was from the Dingle Peninsula – the image that comes to mind when I think of Ireland – rolling green hills, jagged prehistoric seaside cliffs. It looks more like Yosemite or Joshua Tree. I think that might be why this was my favorite place we visited. It took any preconceptions I had about what the landscape *should* be and flipped them completely on their head.

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🌲🌲🌲

We kept seeing these harsh forest lines everywhere in Donegal. Barren, tree-less landscape broken up by extremely dense patches of trees. I later asked our airbnb host, and learned that they’re man-made and known as ‘Silviculture.’ And it’s actually quite harmful to the wildlife when they’re in such dense patches like we’ve been seeing, as opposed to more spaced out where they can naturally grow to fill in the landscape at their own pace.

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horn head

After Glenveagh National Park, we drove out to Horn Head to get even more stunning views of the North Atlantic and explore some ancient ruins. Well, one was ancient, from Napoleonic times, and the other (pictured below) is a lookout tower from WWII. I still can’t quite figure out why a north-facing lookout tower was needed in Ireland during WWII. The little research I’ve done has proven fruitless, but maybe somebody can help clear that up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

⛰⛰⛰

our little Nissan Micra that we'd put ~1000km on by this point

not pictured: Last Podcast On The Left playing

this mid-century modern style house had a pig & sheep farm, and stunning views of Dunfanaghy Bay. Goals.

first thing we'd seen about the IRA the entire trip

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And we made it back to our airbnb (take-away chips in hand) in time to set a fire, have a few guinness, and make some long exposures from the porch of the cabin.

🌌🌌🌌

despite being so bright, that's actually the moon. 30 sec exposure at f/22

I’m working on editing together a video of our travels, so I’ll be sharing that pretty soon along with some missing odds and ends from the last few stories. Plus, I’m now realizing I never shared anything from our 12 hour layover adventure around Toronto, so that’ll be coming up too.