Ireland day 0628. Sunday 18 June 2023- Donegal 02 *

Ireland day 0628. Sunday 18 June 2023- Donegal 02

Today’s summary	Climbed Errigal in the morning then explored Gortahork beach in the afternoon. Drove to Horn Head near Dunfanaghy and got caught in possibly the hardest thunderstorm I have ever known
Today’s weather	Sunshine and cloudy intervals in the morning, but torrential downpours and heavy thunderstorms in late afternoon and evening. Light south easterly wind, strong on the top. Appx 20C

Today’s overview location (The red mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The red line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Errigal

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

It’s hard to find enough superlatives describe Donegal. We climbed up Errigal this morning – superb.

Then we went to the beach at Gortahork this afternoon – superb.

Then drove up to Horn Head near Dunfanaghy and sat in the car while one of the most torrential thunderstorms I have ever known rattled down outside – which was in its own way, also superb. It’s clean, peaceful and spectacular up here – you have to see it to believe it.

Hopefully the pictures do it justice!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The path up Errigal is extremely well made up – mostly to protect the environment against erosion from the thousands of pairs of feet that make their ways up and down every year. As a result, it’s a very easy walk, despite being quite rocky and steep. We were at the top in under an hour and half from the car park	Absolutely stunning views in all directions from the summit. Donegal is truly lovely – a bit like the Torridon area of north west Scotland. The only downside of the beauty is that it attracts a lot of visitors – especially those from overseas in their giant camper vans ~”doing” the Wild Atlantic Way. So as a consequence, some of the more popular places can get a bit busy at times.

More of those beautiful orchids growing in the bog close to the start of the walk	On Finlays Bar beach, near Falcarragh

Brilliant blue skies and sun on the beach (I am glowing this evening) but clouds gathering on the horizon	A taste of things to come – when we were on top of Errigal, we were hit by a brief but heavy rain shower. Once it was gone, it left behind this remarkable low-angle rainbow on the northern horizon. But the shower was nothing when compared to the rain later in the afternoon. It would have been horrendously wet up there in one of the storms – not to mention potentially quite hazardous too, as the thunder and lightning crashed around

Looking a bit dishevelled but feeling great – on the top of Errigal this lunchtime