Our Travels and Blog beginnings.

The Irish weather is not being to kind to us just now. Joyce woke early to wind and rain and elected not to go out for a jog. We had a leisurely breakfast and tidied the van, the rain subsided and myself and Logan The Brave went to explore Calduff beach, leaving square eyed Callum watching a film on the iPad and Joyce tidying the van.  Across the dunes was a beautiful stretch of orange coloured sand that Logan and I walked along, the rain came on as we neared the end on the beach, but went off again when we turned round, we then walked the full length of the beach and found a swing park at the other end, we dried a swing and Logan had some fun on it. Old square eyes would be so jealous if he had seen us. We headed back to the beach and met Joyce and Callum walking along to meet us and got back to the van as the next shower started.  We got on the road and headed back through Malin by mistake (the maps and roadsigns are not always the easiest to follow) and o...

It had rained hard during the night but I never heard a single drop of it, Joyce is a light sleeper and did, she was also up early to get out for her morning jog. There was a pretty decent path all around the campsite and she headed out onto the quiet local roads for a few extra km's also. There weren't many cars around but she was overtaken by a few cyclists who passed the time of day with her. I had the boys up and dressed by be time she got back, we totally sorted the van out for a few days of hopefully cheaper parking...free I mean. We headed west towards Londonderry. Its really nice looking small city but has seen more than its fair share of problems in the past. We took a drive up to have have a look at the murals around the Free Derry corner, they are a sobering reminder of what people living in both Northern and Southern Ireland have had to deal with in the last few decades. Its a really lovely looking city with a cool winding walkway bridge over the river Foyle ...

We woke to the sound of rain in the campsite, but the weather soon improved after a fairly leisurely breakfast. We backtracked down the road for a couple of miles then headed inland to Glenarrif forest park. We and had a nice walk there down a gorge and waterfall walk.  There were some pretty impressive waterfalls and the wooden walkways had clearly taken a fair bit of time and money to out in place. I felt a little sold short however as the walking book I had purchased many years ago likened Glenarrif to a Swiss valley bit I failed totally to see the resemblance....  Maybe I was expecting to round a corner and see a Matterhorn shaped mountain or the like. Never the less, the walk was enjoyable and perfect for the boys with steep downhill wooden walkways, some waterfalls to looks at, some stones to throw in the river and a fine picnic in the sun once we were back at the van. Logan was particularly cool when one of the biggest bees we have ever seen...