We were lucky enough to get the new Airbus A380 for our
flight out of Miami which was nice. Touch screens with movies and games etc. It
even has a feature where you can watch the plane take off and land through 3
different camera positions on board. The flight was pleasant enough and 8 hours later
we landed in Frankfurt, Germany then boarded our connector to Dublin. Needless
to say we were extremely tired when we boarded our bus in Dublin, bound for Bundoran.
After getting off the bus in Bundoran, I asked a local woman where our hostel
might be. Instead of giving us directions, she just told us to jump in her car
and she would take us! Irish hospitality. The country folk are so friendly.
We settled in to our hostel which had a ‘rock n roll’ theme,
with every room decorated with different styles of music. We got the heavy rock
room. The weather was pretty ordinary at the beginning of our stay, cold, wet
and windy. We met a bloke from Northern Ireland called Conner, also staying at
the hostel and he had a car so the 3 of us cruised up and down the coast together
looking for surf and we eventually surfed a wave called Easkey. We checked out
many of the other beaches in the area and enjoyed the scenery.
The next day we were fortunate enough to catch the final of
the Gaelic Football at one of the local pubs. It’s a mix between soccer and
AFL. It was a good Irish pub scene and we enjoyed it, but Conner had to explain
the rules along the way. It was an exciting game and for the record, Dublin (the
underdogs) beat Kerry in the final minute of the match. We enjoyed a few more
surfs around the Bundoran area over the next few days as the swell got bigger
at Black spot, the Peak and at the boat ramp with the Peak being my favourite.
It’s a great wave but it’s always so windy in Ireland and that can ruin it.
Later that week the
teams started to arrive for the European National Surfing Championships that
were being held in Bundoran this year. This was both good and bad. Bad because
now all the waves in the area were crowded with the best surfers in Europe, but
good because the town came alive and there was a lot more going on. We went and
saw a traditional Irish folk band called Kila in a local small pub with Erin,
Pia, Kate and Diarmid from the hostel, which we really enjoyed. The next night
we saw a blues band at a different pub. We had a good 10 days in Bundoran with
a mix of stormy weather to sunshine, and some small waves to big. We made many
friends and thoroughly enjoyed the craic!
