Monday    1.8.2022
  288km Total: 1830km   4h 24m Total: 23h 39m  18°

It's time to leave Dublin but first I want to fix a mistake.
Last time I was here I regretted not getting a picture of the bike at St. James Gate so I will try to fix that before I leave Dublin all together.
Once at the gate, a couple of dudes are walking around in slow motion, one carrying a steady-cam.
They wave at me to go past but I manage to convey in sign language that I am there for the same purpose and park by the pavement until they'd finished.
I don't know if they dragged it out on purpose but given the time it took, there's probably not a chip in that gate that isn't meticulously documented.

However, my dedication to the task seem to have been pretty obvious to a group of people waiting by the corner, so after I got the bike in place and snapped some photos, a woman came up and asked if I'd like for her to take a picture of me with the bike.
Even if it extended the exit from Dublin by more than an hour, it was damn well worth it and the day's stage is not very long anyway.

I arrive at the only planned waypoint of the day, Castle Saunderson, just before two in the afternoon and almost as soon as I park the bike the sky opens up.
The original castle dates back to the 17th century but the castle has been in its current form since 1840.
Since its third fire in 1990, the castle has been in ruins and is now owned, along with the land (42ha) by the Irish Scouts.
Due to a lack of funds, the Scouts have focused their available capital on the natural area and have left the castle to its fate for the time being.

I drive on in a rain that is almost exponentially increasing in volume.
The last two hours before I roll into the garage of my guesthouse in Derry have been like sitting on a motorbike in a car wash.

After a steaming hot shower, I put on pretty much all the clothes in my pack, including my freshly purchased Guinness hat, and set off to explore.
I start, of course, with a walk of just 500 metres to Free Derry Corner and the Bogside murals.
The next stop was a heart attack-inducing stroll up the castle hill and onto the ramparts.
As usual, I get a little stuck in the futile attempts of wanting to see as much as possible before it gets dark.
But when I feel the delicious barbecue smell from The Bentley as I pass by, my stomach reminds me with a less than subtle rumble that it's been quite a while since I'd last eaten.

When a Jack Daniels marinated rib arrives that takes up most of the table however, I begin to wonder if I haven't literally gotten a little more than I could chew but it the end I managed to wolf all of it down.

After supper I continue the walk on the ring wall with detours to the loyalist area West Bank and the peace bridge.
I'm starting to feel very tired towards nine in the evening so I actually surprised even myself by walking past a number of pubs back to Chamberlain Guesthouse without even stopping for a pint.

St. James Gate

Castle Saunderson

Free Derry Corner and the Bogside murals.

The view from the castle hill over the Bogside and the London guns on the rampart.

The West Bank, the peace monument Hands Across the Divide and some very creative "homestyling".

A highly apolitical mural at the back of Badgers Bar depicting the characters of Derry Girls, one of the funniest comedy shows ever made.

The peace bridge over Foyle.

Tuesday    2.8.2022     17°

I sleep for almost 12 hours and wake up with a brutal cold. And of course, like with everything else, that order is served with a side of migraine.
It's not entirely without reason that I feel a bit down when I leave Chamberlain in the late morning but thankfully at least the rains are absent.

I start the day like yesterday with a walk towards Free Derry Corner but with destination Free Derry Museum.
A quite harrowing experience but very interesting.

I then fight my way back up to the ring wall and St Columb's Cathedral which unfortunately was not open to the public during any of the two days I had at my disposal but it has a very beautiful exterior.
After the original church was destroyed in dramatic circumstances when it was used as a gunpowder store during the Nine Years' War and looted to build fortifications, the foundations of the current cathedral were built in 1633.

However, the next stop is arguably the most beautiful building of the trip so far, the Guildhall.
With an equally dramatic history since its construction in 1890 that includes a fire that nearly burned the building to the ground and several IRA bombings, the building was first renovated at a cost of €2.5 million in 1977 and then to its current state in 2013.
Then at a cost of nearly €10 million.
As impressive as the building's exterior is it is surpassed by the grandiose great hall inside, it was a very pleasant experience to stroll around this building.

After almost cleaning out pharmacy of cold remedies I start to move towards the assembly point for a walking tour with Martin McCrossan for which I bought a ticket after seeing a banner yesterday at Badgers Bar.
I figured that for £6, it would have to be pretty bad to not be worth that kind of money but what I didn't think of at the time was the language barrier.
I was standing behind a native in the checkout queue at the pharmacy and basically the whole conversation was over before I even realised they were speaking English.
Derry is the most incomprehensible English dialect I've encountered since Glasgow.

The guide was very much a local so it was with my concentration turned to 11 that I was given a guided walk on Derry's city walls.
In its 400-year history, no enemy has ever breached them.
This is something that the guide claimed still underlies some of the problems that still exist between republicans and loyalists, pointing out that there is a 'siege mentality' that results in locked positions with no real willingness to negotiate.
The wall also bears traces of the conflict as a bastion lies empty where a statue of George Walker once stood.
The bastion was blown up by the IRA with a car bomb in 1973 and reopened as a viewing platform as recently as 2019.

What I particularly remember from the tour was that Derry was the port where the remainder of the Nazi wolfpack surrendered, many others choosing to sink their ships rather than hand them over to the enemy.
On 14 May 1945, 8 German U-boats sailed into the Royal Navy dock in Derry harbour under a white flag, eventually with as many as 40-60 U-boats moored in Derry.
The Kriegsmarine's most dangerous weapon had surrendered to the British which marked the end of the Battle of the Atlantic.
All submarines were sunk off Malin Head as part of Operation Deadlight which they bitterly regret today as Derry is about to open a naval museum.

After completing the tour, I, who was in pretty bad shape to begin with, have worsened considerably and I have snot pouring out my nose at about the same extent as yesterday's rainfall.
I make my way back to the hotel.
A reflection on my stay in Derry is that people here are genuinely friendly in a way that is becoming extremely rare.
Despite a runny nose and migraines, I have a very good lasting impression of my days here.

Mural at the Free Derry Museum and the Hunger Strike Monument at Free Derry Corner.

Heritage Tower, a former prison that housed Republican leaders such as Éamon De Valera and Wolfe Tone on the Loyalist side of the so-called Peace Wall.
Despite a long-standing peace between the two sides, there is still support among residents (according to the guide at Martin McCrossan) for keeping the wall in place.

St Columb's Cathedral

Guildhall

One of the latest murals in the peoples gallery painted in 2004 by Bogside artists after a model painted by Derry children.

Wednesday    3.8.2022
  414km Total: 2244km   7h 40m Total: 31h 19m  12°

Not to be unnecessarily whiny but when I wake up, yesterdays cold has matured into a full-fledged man-cold from hell.
I also have a galloping migraine, it's 12° (54°F) degrees and the rain is pissing down.
In short, the baseline today is not brilliant.
Yesterday, I actually considered in a weak moment to extend the booking at the Chamberlain in Derry just to rest and try to get rid of the cold.
But the difficulty in finding affordable accommodation has meant that unlike how I usually do have actually pre-booked accommodation for the next few days without the possibility of a refund.

When I then after only half an hour in the saddle get a message from the manager of this evening's accommodation that she has cancelled my booking, my mood (if it was at all possible) drops to brand new and previously unknown lows.
It certainly wasn't helped by the fact that the reason she removed my booking (which I'd made several weeks earlier) was that she had a chance to rent out the entire hotel to a larger group.
So let me take this opportunity to say to the manager of The Midway Bar & Guesthouse in Dungloe, Ireland: F**k you, f**k you very much.

Today's first stop is the northwest point of the Wild Atlantic Way, which is located on a headland called Malin.
Not entirely illogical then that the tip of it is called Malin Head.
When I park the bike, the rain is pouring down to such an extent that I don't even bother to take off my helmet and the entire headland which probably in fairer weather has a magnificent view is covered by thick fog.
At this point an older gentleman approaches with a clipboard, introduces himself as a representative of the Ireland Tourist Board and asks if he can ask some questions about customer satisfaction.
In my state of mind and under the circumstances, it seemed so farcical that I started looking around for a hidden camera.

However, I couldn't help but consider when asked about affordability, that given that this particular visit at this particular place didn't really cost anything and as such didn't really have that much expectation to deliver I really couldn't fault its value.
He seemed strangely satisfied with the answer even though I myself thought I had pretty much dodged the question.

Farcical is also a fairly good description of the navigation I manage when I try to move on from Malin Head. Pathetic would also be very much appropriate.
Now the feverish cold has apparently clouded my mind to such an extent that I can no longer even distinguish between completely opposite directions.
I manage to turn what should have been a one-hour ride into over two by going back and forth from the headland to the mainland like a decapitated chicken.

I eventually make my way back and further along the WAW, not stopping very often as the rain never stops and the temperature never exceeds 13° (55°F) throughout the day.
At one of the stops I manage to find new accommodation at a Homestay in Glenties.
This will certainly not be a budget holiday. Hotels are completely out of the question as I had to pay €75 for a room in someone's home.

When I arrived at Mary's house at Brook Lodge, it was almost eight o'clock in the evening and I have to admit that by that point I was pretty much completely broken down both physically and mentally.
The weather here makes Iceland look like a beach holiday and there's honestly nothing about this days experiences I couldn't have gladly done without.
Almost 8 hours in the saddle to get 400kms (250mi) would have been perfectly fine under better circumstances, but on this day the miles cost a lot more than they delivered.
As if I hadn't started re-evaluating my life choices even before that, I had to spend half an hour on the phone with booking.com to avoid being charged for the accommodation that had in somewhat more diplomatic terms told me to piss off.
The fact that she got paid more for renting the room to someone else did not prevent her from trying to get paid for the room twice as she technically never deleted my booking and if I where to do it I would be charged anyway.
If there was any other option at all, I would have rather avoided booking.com altogether as I have had bad experiences with them in the past but unfortunately they seem to be the totally dominant booking service in Ireland.

This navigation isn't exactly going in my CV.

Malin Head
Out there sleeping dogs lie in their final rest.

An hour later, still on Malin. More or less completely lost.

Gap of Mamore

MacSweeney's Castle

R268, Donegal