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Kya Travels
We woke this morning a little bit hungover, and packed our things. Donald had said he would take us down to the O'Cahan castle ruins if we were around at about 11:30, but we didn't have time to wait for him, or we would miss another bus, so we left the B&B and walked down towards the river. This time instead of crossing the river, we walked down the first street, and followed it for quite a bit. After thinking maybe we were getting lost again, we finally came across a sign pointing to O'Cahan's rock, so we left the road and headed into the woods. We walked along the very pretty (but still wet) paths, which were lined with pretty red autumn leaves, which contrasted very prettily with the green and brown of the trees. It was quite a nice walk during the day. After walking a while we came to O'Cahan's rock, where we came to the conclusion that the dog leap story was a bit fabricated, as there was no way a dog could jump from that height or that far to cross the river without dying or falling into the rushing river! There was a pretty view from the edge of the rock down the river Roe, and after a few photos we kept heading on. We got to the castle ruins shortly after, but we were on the wrong walking track, so we had to make our way over the boggy grass to get to the other side. It wasn't much of a castle. It was literally one stone, about the size of a park bench, with a few scattered stones around it, and a sign saying O'Cahan's Castle. It was pretty cool though, and a very nice place to have a castle, right on the edge of a not-so-high-cliff on the river. From there we walked just a bit further on to find the visitor centre, and came across a cool newish statue of the wolfhound leaping off a rock. We also found a cute little robin, who let us get closer than we expected to him. The centre was closed, but there were a couple of people working in an office out the back, so we knocked on the window to ask of they could call a taxi for us, as the bus to Derry had already left, and we didn't want to miss ANOTHER bus out of Derry! So the lady, Margaret, came out and let us in, and the man, Seamus, called the cab company for us. We had a chat with them while we waited, but apparently the cab company wouldn't be available for a little while. But then Seamus offered to actually drive us into Derry! Apparently he had an errand to run in a town close by, and said he would leave then if we needed! Amazing. Again, Irish people win. So we hopped in his car and had a great chat with him for the 45ish minute drive. He dropped us near Darren's street, as the traffic was a little crazy, and we waved goodbye and walked the rest of the way there. By the time we got to Darren's, there was no way we were making the bus, but there was a train in an hour, so it wasn't so bad. We went inside and packed up our things, and got our clean clothes from the dryer, then Darren walked with us into town. We walked through the city centre and came to the river, where we crossed the big white peace bridge to the more Protestant side of town. We said our final goodbye to Darren on a corner, as he was going a different way to visit a friend, then kept walking towards the train station. --and now my Darren will be referred to as Darren again!!-- I wasn't 100% sure, and didn't want to risk missing this train, so I asked a man at the next corner if we were still going the right way, and he said we were, and that he was going to the train station as well, so we walked with him down to the station. He was a very nice man named Alan, and we chatted all the way there. We got to the station, bought our tickets to Coleraine, then jumped on the train. We got a table seat, where Alan joined us for the trip. We chatted for ages, he was a nice man with a very positive outlook on life. He told us all about his travels through Australia, as he had been there every year for the last 20 years to visit his son and grandkids. As we talked, we passed some beautiful scenery, as the train drove by the ocean and some mountainous regions, with snow, and some pretty waterfalls coming down because of the rain and the snow. It was very beautiful. We arrived in Coleraine and Alan even showed us through to the bus station to make sure we knew where we were going, then we said goodbye to him and went to jump on a bus. Unfortunately we didn't quite have enough cash, but another one was arriving 20 minutes later, so we headed out to find a cash machine. We ran into Alan again at the entrance to the station and he walked with us down to the bank as well, making sure we knew where we were headed. Such a lovely man. We said goodbye again, grabbed some cash and went back to the station and jumped on the bus to Ballycastle. This drive was also very scenic and pretty, taking us pretty much the whole way along the rugged Northern Irish coastline before arriving an hour later in Ballycastle. The bus dropped us directly opposite our hotel, which was great, so we went straight in and got checked in to our very nice room! (Accommodation was scarce here, so we had to splash out a little for tonight!) When we got to our room, Darren headed straight in for a nap, and I dropped off my bags and headed out again. I went up the street to a little shop we had seen last time we were here, that had some teatowels with Northern Irish slang translated into English. We thought they were very cool last time, and they still had them so I bought the set. Merry Christmas to us! I stopped in a small wine shop (which had an unusually large array of Australian wines) for a bottle to take with us to the family's house that night, then I headed back to the hotel. While Darren kept snoozing I had a nice long bath then got ready, and woke him up. We had a cuppa, then when we were ready, headed out the doors. We walked outside and it was so cold and windy, but then we turned the corner and were nearly blown over by the wind! It was crazy! We called Elizabeth (Darren's great aunt) to let her know we were on our way, and she said not to worry, and that someone would come to pick us up! So we waited in the warm lobby and shortly after we were picked up by Brendan, who is Darren's cousin-once-removed-in-law, and got driven out to the house. We were welcomed in and said hello to eeryone we'd met last time, and were introduced to the family that we hadn't met yet. We had a good chat with everyone and Elizabeth's daughter, Stephanie, (Darren's cousin-once-removed) started to draw us up a bit of a family tree. We continued chatting as Elizabeth served us up some Irish stew (and veggie quiche for me) and dessert, and cuppas! We were quite full by then! More cousins-once-removed-in-law's arrived, Francis and Annie, then we all moved into the lounge room and had a few drinks. We chatted for ages about the family history, and especially Darren's father, Alan, his wife Ines, and their kids, John Patrick and James. Elizabeth gave us the photos she had put aside for us from last time, and we went through them putting names on the backs of them, so we didn't forget, then got some family photos before everyone left. After a while everyone had slowly trickled out, and it was very late, so we said our goodbyes to Elizabeth and Donald and headed off into the night. It was a very windy and cold walk back to the hotel, and then when we got there the place was locked up and we were locked out! We knocked and rang the doorbell repeatedly, and called the hotel multiple times. We ended up calling Elizabeth, and she suggested we call the police, and gave us the phone number, so we started to call them. At this stage we'd been outside for about half an hour, and were frozen, then after Darren had started explaining our situation, a night porter appeared in the hotel, looking a little disheveled. So we finally got in out of the cold, and tried to see where he had been. At first he said he was just in the next room, (which he wasn't, as we had been banging on those windows too) then he tried telling us about all his responsibilities, and that he didn't think anyone was still out, etc etc, but at no point in the 10ish minute conversation were we offered an apology. We were even accused of lying about how long we were outside for! We're pretty sure he was sleeping. He had that I've-just-woken-up disoriented vibe about him, and kept straightening his clothes... So after a bit we gave up and just went up to bed annoyed and went to sleep.
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