Day 23 -Ballycastle to Letterkenny - 115kms

Awoke to a cold wet morning after previous 3 days of brilliant weather. Equipped with nothing more than main routes road map we said goodbye to our lovely host at Kinbane Head.

30kms put us in Coleraine passing through a no. of Nthn Ireland towns where it seemed every house had it's own large flag proudly demonstrating their own allegiance whethere it be to the Uk or the republic

Letterkenny at last !

This had me a little worried as wearing a bright orange wet weather jacket i vaguely remembered that Orange was the primary colour of one of the Nthn Ireland historical protagnists what or who I was unsure but I hoped it wasn't going to make me a moving target.

Londonderry was 50 kms on requiring us to negotiate 3 lane roundabouts, mix it with fast moving traffic and conduct a grinding 5km climb out of Coleraine. Most disconcerting though was being blessed by another cyclist just as we were about to enter on to a dual carriageway heading into Londonderry - whatever the meaning I was sure this was not a good sign!

Kev found the last 30 kms
articulately tough suffering a puncture before we arrived 6pm in Letterkenny to be told by our hotel that they did not have a booking for us - an hour later a couple of phone calls and some good ol Aussie diplomacy finally resolved the matter - the fact the room was as far away from the as you could get and on 3rd floor and required 2 lifts both of which just allowed 1 pushbike to fit and nothing else had nothing go do with Irish payback!

We met up and had a few pints with our Irish mate Paul who we'd met in Tibet on our Everest ride in 2010 and living in Galway had helped organise our Irish cycling leg as well as ridden part way to join us for 3 days and to ensure that wed have access to a car when finished - a preview of the great hospitality followed.