Ireland, Day Thirteen: Inishowen Peninsula

For our last day of road trip exploring, we decided to drive around the Inishowen Peninsula up to Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland. I have a coworker who is from this area and highly recommended it. We also considered Giant's Causeway, an hour in the other direction, but ultimately decided it would doubtless be very crowded and we didn't feel like dealing with a lot of people. This turned out to be the right decision.

The drive to Malin Head was beautiful and the area is very isolated. The very tip top of County Donegal.

Here they have another of the EIRE signs from World War II.

The wind was back. It was SO WINDY. Always with the wind. I also had woken up with a cold. So we walked out to the point and back, but didn't do much more exploring.

It was so windy here that the seafoam in this cove was blowing in little globs up the beach.

The last walking trail!

And here it comes, the rain. We booked it out of there to as not to get stuck out on the beach when it hit.

I was honestly shocked we made it the entire trip without crashing this car into anything. Trusty little horrible car!

We stopped at a famous seafood restaurant for a late lunch. The crab claws were like half the size of a human fist.

My coworker had recommended this restaurant, and it was also mentioned in the Lonely Planet book. We were there at 2pm and the restaurant was virtually deserted.

We ended up staying for quite a while after we ate to talk to the bartender - he is from the area and told us a lot what it was like to grow up there during the tensions of the 80s and 90s, the precarious peace they have going on now, and their fears for the near-term future as a result of Brexit. With Britain leaving the EU, they are going to have to do something about the invisible border with Ireland, when everybody involved would prefer to leave things as they are.

When we arrived back at the hotel I became extremely shivery and feverish and nauseated and stayed that way, more or less, for most of the night. It wasn't great. Ben had to go out and find me some acetaminophen because Advil wasn't cutting it. I was okay-ish by the following day; the nausea and high fever never came back, anyway, although I had cold symptoms for the next week or so. I don't know if this was coincidental food poisoning or what, but I'm three for three on being sick during our most recent vacations. I hope this isn't the beginning of a tradition.