Day 13 ~ Dun Doan

We woke up to find the sun shining brightly which was perfect for our day at the beach. We were heading up to see friends of Darryl and Sinead. Eddie & Aisling Kelly have a family cottage on the beach in Dun Doan right on the water.

Sinead took a different route to the beach to show me some pretty scenery and Lough Salt. We stopped at this look out and Ceara is trying to get cell phone reception so we can let Darryl know that we've turned off the main road. We never did get a hold of them!
More and more dumb but pretty sheep on the road.

Very scenic, no?

We had a wee bit of trouble finding the right driveway to turn off at to get to the cottage. Sinead hadn't been there for a few years so we had a a little adventure. After reaching Darryl on his mobile we finally go to the right spot. This is the view from the main road.

This is the view from where we parked. You can see the roof of their little house. We had to walk a fairly steep grassy incline to their cottage. I thought of all the work to trek up and down to bring groceries, babies and all that. Phew!

Here it is! This cottage is over 100 years old. The addition on the right is the kitchen and bathroom. Eddie told us his mom grew up here with seven siblings (I think?). There are only two bedrooms upstairs! The property itself has been in the family for hundreds of years and the original dwelling just has a bit of the foundation left.

They are just a few steps from the beach itself. The weather was absolutely perfect.

Eddie and Aisling have two boys a bit younger than Nate and Chad named Ronan and Oran. It took a while for them to warm up to the Canadian boys with the strange accents. They sure did enjoy exploring the beach and tidal pools.

Ahhh...sun, glorious sun. We actually were quite warm for a time.

A yummy picnic on the beach. Darryl made us tuna pita pockets.

See those clouds behind me. They were coming to rain on our picnic! The thing about Irish weather is that is never stays the same for very long.

Emma and Clodagh like picnics too. Nothing like an unopened bag of crisps to amuse a baby for ages.

Oh dear....those clouds meant business. We basically had to go into the house....all sixteen of us to wait out the storm! It was cozy...very cozy!

This is a view of the cottage from down the beach.

Aisling's sister Orla was there from Scotland for a visit as well. We got to meet her son Caolean (Kee-lan) who was only 2 weeks older than Liam.

This is the beautiful baby Ella who is 2 weeks younger than Liam. She belongs to Eddie and Aisling.

There wasn't really any place to lay Liam down for a nap so we did what we could!

The cottage was very rustic but homey. They had traditional music playing and it all felt very 'Irish' to me. The house had many photos, mementos, and art on the walls (Eddie paints in his spare time) and it was very interesting to just sit and look around. We were made to feel very very welcome.

After the storm we vacated the premises to all give our legs a good stretch on the beach. We walked around the bend to find another beautiful stretch of sand which was great fun to just run wild on.

After our long walk, we arrived back at the cottage to find that they had made us all a big BBQ. Chicken, sausages, burgers (buns are called 'baps'), salads...it was very tasty!

The Guinness was poured, the music was playing, the craic was grand. It was just a very lovely afternoon.

The time came to say good bye. Here are Ronan and Oran showing off their tattoos. They were sweet boys. We truly enjoyed ourselves!

On the way back to the main road the road was swarming with sheep. I had to get out of the car and yell and chase them away. It was good fun!

We got home about 9 pm, washed up our dirty children and threw them to bed. Darryl and Keith walked over to the convenience store and bought us all some decadent ice cream bars to go with the movie we were going to watch.

We fell into bed exhausted and excited for our big trip in the morning!