Castlerock/Downhill to a Learmount/Park

Wednesday October 6, 2010

My campsite for the night in a small clearing in the middle of Downhill Forest.

Yep, the mat definitely has a leak in it. By the time I woke up in the morning I was basically just sleeping on the ground.
Since I wasn't near a shop, I just used the powdered milk for breakfast.
There were a few routes I could take today. One was via Cycle Network Route 93 heading inland to Londonderry. Another was to head out to Magilligan Point, catch the ferry across to Greencastle then ride alongside the inlet and into Londonderry that way. The bloke from the hostel in Ballycastle had recommended the second option, he'd said the first was going through some industrialised areas.
I took the second option, made the ferry with a comfortable ten minutes to spare (it runs every hour). The ferry was just like a portable road. The cars drove onto this road, the road floated across the inlet, then the cars drove off the other side.
It cost me £2 as a foot passenger, the bike didn't cost anything extra.

Catching the ferry from Magilligan Point to Greencastle.

Catching the ferry from Magilligan Point to Greencastle.

Catching the ferry from Magilligan Point to Greencastle.

Catching the ferry from Magilligan Point to Greencastle.

About to depart the ferry at Greencastle, Northern Ireland.

The ride from Greencastle to Londonderry was nothing special, and I had a headwind for the whole 31 km.
One of the main roads into the city centre was closed, which I later found out was because there had been a big explosion near the river, and there were forensics teams investigating. The police were there with big semi-automatic rifles, it was a little intimidating.
I stopped in Londonderry for lunch by the river, then it started raining. The weather changes so quickly! Half an hour later the sun was out again.

The River Foyle in the city of Londonderry, more commonly known as Derry, the second largest city in Northern Ireland, and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland.

I continued along one of the more direct cycle routes because I knew it was a fair way to get to Belfast in two days. So I was aiming to get over the Sperrin Mountains before the day was through.

A photo taken from Slieveboy Road, near a town called Park in Northern Ireland.

However, in line with my destination goals rarely being achieved (so far), I didn't quite make it that far. I got to a little town called Learmount just as dusk was approaching, and thought about what to do. I was thinking I'd better grab something from the shop for tea because it might be the last one before the mountains, and then maybe start on the mountains and find somewhere to camp.
At this point I was fortunate enough to be struck by another act of kindness. A man in his late fifties in a little blue car was watching me from across the road. I must have looked a little lost because he thought to himself "now that man needs some help". How do I know he thought this? Because he told me later on.
Anyway, he asked me if I knew where I was going. I told him I was just looking at the map to work it out, and that I should be okay. He wandered over for a chat though, and I showed him the map (on the iPhone) and said that I was trying to get to Belfast by the next night, and that I'd try and find somewhere to set up the tent for the night.
He said that the reason he was asking was because he works for the tourist board, and said they have self-contained rooms above the shop just there that they have guests stay in, with a kitchen, bathrooms, etc, for £12 a night. I was tempted to take up the offer, I wasn't sure if he'd said it was just during the tourist season that they do that though.
Then he said he had a field just down the road that I could pitch my tent in if I liked. He reckoned they'd used it for a music festival just a few weeks earlier, and there'd been lorries and the like in there, and he explained where it was.
This sounded like a good idea since it would be dark in an hour and it would save having to find a camp site. I had wanted to cover more kilometres though. I ummed and ahh'd a bit, then he mentioned he also had a few sheds not far away, and also a caravan that I could stay in, "no charge". This was an offer too good to refuse, so I said "well, if you don't mind, staying in the caravan would be really good, it'd save me having to set up the tent."
So he showed me this caravan which was just down the road, and explained "yeah we only use it during the summer, so during the other months we keep it in here to protect it from the weather. The shed's a bit small, but it's the only place we have for it really."

The caravan that I was offered to sleep in for the night, in Learmount.

Mikes property (who offered me the caravan to sleep in), in one of the sheds pictured.

He also asked me "so which part of England are you from?"
"Oh I'm from Australia actually" I replied, to which he seemed impressed. I didn't think I sounded English, but it's not the first time I've been mistaken as such. It seems many foreigners, having not been to Australia and not knowing any Australians, can often not pick the Australian accent.
Anyway, he handed me the key to unlock the door, and the wrench to put down the legs at the back for stability, said "so you've got the bed in the caravan, you could probably drop into the shop for some food, and that should do you for the night eh?"
"Yeah I think I'll do that. Thanks very much for this!", and with that he was off again, back to his house in the same building as the aforementioned shop.
I set up in the caravan and rode to the shop. It was a good opportunity to cook pasta for tea, except I'd run out of metho, which is what the Trangia runs on. I was angry at myself for not getting more earlier, but it's hard to find over here because the supermarkets don't sell it, unlike Australia.
As luck would have it though, the local "Spar" (the name of the supermarket chain) was also adjoined to a hardware store, and although it was already closed, the girl behind the shop counter had a key and fetched me a bottle of metho!
While I was in the supermarket though, a woman said to me: "Are you the Australian boy?"
"Yep?" I replied.
"Yes Mike was telling me about you. Would you like tea at our place? I know it's hard cooking when you're camping. What would you like? Do you want me to do a fry-up for you?"
How could I refuse an offer like that?
I grabbed the groceries I was getting for tea anyway, because I'd be able to cook for lunch the next day.
Then I went to their house, two doors up in the same building as the shop. The blokes name was Michael, and I had a bit of a chat to him.
His wife's name was Rita. Their daughter, Anne-Marie, was also there, and she gave me a laptop to check my email. The Internet wasn't working but I didn't tell her that because I didn't want to cause a hassle and I didn't really need to check email anyway.
Rita had cooked tea for me a moment later, and I went into the dining room and had a chat with her.

The fry-up that Rita cooked for me, with a cup of tea and some bread.

Tea (dinner) was delicious; it was very kind of her!
They were big tea drinkers too, and I reckon I would have had eight cups of tea with them in total, with cake and biscuits too!

Rita, the friendly local Irish lass that cooked for me.

Rita told me about their son Gregory, and his two little kids aged two and five. They live a few houses up the road. Gregories wife's sister lives in Australia, Rita couldn't remember where abouts though.
Rita told me about her family tree, and how half of her relatives live in America, one of them has the family tree on "about 50 A4 pages all celotaped together".
She told about how they would sometimes have to fly to places like Edinburgh or Dublin for a wedding over the weekend, and guests would have to stay in an expensive hotel that was booked for all the guests.
She spoke about the employment situation in Ireland, "builders were employed here, but they were selling the places for too much, the boom slowed down, then the recession hit, so there was no longer any work here, so all the young men have gone to Australia, and Canada I think it is".
Other Irish people I've spoken to have also talked about this, about how they have heaps of engineers that have gone to work in Australia. When I was working at Yarra Valley Water, there were actually quite a few young Irish engineers working there.
Anne-Marie is a teacher, with a master's degree in ICT I think she said. She's worked in Galway in the west of Ireland for a year, Dublin for a year, and has also taught in Spain for a year which she said was a great experience.
But due to the hard times, she currently didn't have a job in teaching, and works in the shop instead.

Anne-Marie, Mike and Rita's daughter who was a school teacher and had lived in Spain for a year.

Her partner is also a cyclist; he wasn't doing it for about fifteen years but started again in May and has been doing races in Ireland.
Anne-Marie also talked about the laws regarding getting a drivers license in Ireland, which I can't remember now but weren't dissimilar to Australia.
She'd also road-tripped through France, so she talked about that. We got the maps out, and did a bit of planning as well. She was kind enough to give me a few pages of French phrases with English translations, including the pronunciation.
I thanked them for their kind hospitality and rode back to the caravan in the shed, and cooked pasta for lunch the next day.

Cooking pasta on the Trangia in the caravan for lunch the next day.

Then I went to sleep on a comfortable bed in the caravan.

Ride stats:
Distance: 85.03 km
Average: 18.5 km/h
Maximum: 54.1 km/h
Time: 4:35:43