Ireland: Baptism on bikes in Donegal

There is the soft, floating mist that gently moistens your face on tranquil afternoons. There is the drizzle that washes the landscape and makes the earth smell like spring. Another, the languid downpour, floods the streets and leaves rainbows hanging in the distance.

And then there is the rain that my father and I experienced on a bicycle tour of County Donegal in May. This rain stings and cuts; it is whipped into a fury by the wind. It wants to be like its nastier cousin, hail. It makes sheep, despite their thick woolen coats, take cover under hedges and rocks. When they hear it hammering on the roof in the morning, even the toughest farmers don't bother getting out of bed.

Above all else, that rain was why just about everyone who heard that we would spend six days on bicycles in the far corners of Donegal looked at us as if we were clueless, or masochists, or both. After two days of being battered by Donegal rain, we started to wonder about that, too.

But there was a happy ending. After a very wet baptism on our first two days, we were blessed with four days of sunshine, revealing the most dramatic scenery I have seen anywhere in Ireland since moving here five years ago.

Surviving that watery onslaught also gave us a perverse sense of pride, and taught us to understand the landscape differently. Once you know what to look for, a sodden Irish valley or mountaintop can be almost as beautiful as a dry one - or at least that's what I told myself whenever more storm clouds loomed.

Dad had visited Ireland several times, so we both knew of Donegal's reputation for sweeping coastlines, rugged terrain and secluded fishing villages. Since it is cut off from the rest of the Irish Republic by Northern Ireland, Donegal also has a quirky culture, with its own style of traditional music - we stumbled across it in a pub on our first night - and its own accent, a contorted speech that even other Irish often find unintelligible.

Since you can never predict Irish weather - forecasters only say that conditions will be "changeable" - May seemed as good a time to go as any. And tourists were at least a month away, so the countryside would be gloriously empty.

Donegal's hilly terrain was also recommended by the company that arranged our trip, Iron Donkey, since we were eager for a physical challenge. Iron Donkey specializes in self-guided tours: a fee of $840 each covered bike rental, bed-and-breakfast accommodations and the transport of our bags to each day's destination. Most important, Iron Donkey provided maps to navigate obscure routes through Donegal's backcountry.

Those maps are the jewel in Iron Donkey's crown. Its founder, Tony Boyd, a cheerful world traveler who returned to Belfast after Northern Ireland's peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement, was signed in 1998, claims to know the roads of Northern Ireland and Donegal better than anyone. And since he says he has biked and driven them all in search of routes that have the prettiest scenery and the fewest cars, he just might.

My father and I consider ourselves experienced cyclists, with a basic understanding of technical requirements like changing a tire. Dad used to race in amateur clubs; I race through Dublin traffic to get to work every day. Still, to test out the brakes, gears and the general fit of our bikes - smooth-riding, brand-new, 24-speed touring bikes with fenders and panniers - Tony drove us 10 miles in the wrong direction and made us ride back to where he was waiting at the starting point, in Ballybofey.

Then we were on our own, starting with a 40-mile trek on a near-abandoned road through the Blue Stack Mountains in south central Donegal, heading west toward the sea. This was what we had come for: a feeling of complete remoteness, where the only regular sign of human civilization is the thin strip of smooth tarmac winding off toward the horizon.

Cars appeared no more than once every half hour, leaving us in solitude to admire the distant mountains' streaks of quartz glistening in the sunlight, and farmhouses tucked into the folds of the hills. (A cell phone later proved essential to call Tony when we worried about getting lost, and even for a dinner recommendation.)

Well, it was near solitude. For every human being we passed, we saw several hundred sheep, thousands upon thousands in all, and they became our roadside entertainment as we sped by.

Rams would stand in the road and trot imperiously aside, hardly glancing as our bikes raced closer, while newborn lambs lifted their heads and sprang off to join their mothers at the slightest disturbance. When we stopped at one stone wall to take a picture, a whole herd gathered, baa-ing in unison.

Once on the road, we spent two nights in Ardara (pronounced ar-DRAH), a homey town with one main street and 12 pubs that serves as a gateway to Donegal's rugged southwestern peninsula. We stayed at the elegant yet eccentric Woodhill House, which began life as a 17th-century estate. Our bedroom was in the coach house, one of the oldest sections, with low, thick wooden beams.

We were lucky that our two days of rain coincided with our two nights in Woodhill House, since it proved a perfect place to recuperate from those cold, wet miles. Before dinner, we relaxed in the bar, which is tended by John Yates, the owner. It felt remarkably civilized to study our menus looking out a bay window to the hills, and to mingle with other guests and with Lucy, the Yates' big black lab, over a glass of wine.

Those days also included some of the trip's most impressive sights. From Ardara, we took a 12-mile extension to the planned route west to Loughros Point, a thin stretch of land jutting out into an Atlantic bay, where waves rolled for hundreds of yards through shockingly bright blue waters.

We contemplated cycling down to the Slieve League Cliffs, which rise to 1,972 feet above Donegal Bay, the highest sea cliffs in Western Europe and more than three times the height of Ireland's better-known Cliffs of Moher. But getting from sea level to the top would mean the steepest climb on our tour with already aching legs and 30 miles to go that day. So we locked our bikes and hitched a lift for the last mile to the lookout, and were glad we did, since even the car skidded in gravel on the steepest parts.

And then there was Glengesh Pass. The night before, a fellow diner had warned us about it: she grew up in the area in the 1950s, and during family trips over the pass, everyone except her father had to get out of the car, because automobile engines of the time couldn't handle hills that steep with a full load.

We started at the bottom of a quiet valley just outside Ardara and kept climbing for more than three miles, up painfully steep hairpin turns. At the top, three French tourists who had stopped their van at a lookout point cheered and clapped as we pushed up the final stretch.

Such surroundings would be appropriate backdrops for "The Lord of the Rings." Our sense of achievement and awe while cycling through them was tempered only by our old foes, rain and wind.

Biking into a gusting headwind is like jogging in a swimming pool, and doing it for 10 long miles at a time becomes a test of psychological as well as physical endurance. No wonder they said we were crazy - and no wonder we saw no one else on bikes the whole week.

As we approached a town during one storm, we sheltered in a driveway behind a hedge. The owner of the house promptly appeared, insisting that we come in out of the rain. We did, and sat dripping on his couch until the weather eased, enjoying the best-timed example of Irish hospitality we came across.

The sun shone for four days, or half of the 200 miles we traveled northeast along the coast. The terrain relaxed a bit, so we did, too, taking time to soak up the views and roadside sights.

Near Milford, in the north, we stopped at a Mass rock, one of many sites where Roman Catholic priests held furtive services for parishioners in the 17th and 18th centuries, when celebrating Mass was banned on penalty of death.

We cut a few miles off our route to arrive early in Bunbeg, on the northwest coast, where we stayed at Bunbeg House, a large bed-and-breakfast on a quaint harbor, and to have a long, leisurely dinner at the Seaview Hotel. Like many of the newly built tourist establishments in Donegal, the hotel felt slightly sterile, but with ocean-facing windows, it lived up to its name. Its restaurant had more atmosphere, and served us portions of pasta and seafood big enough to feed an entire Irish family - perhaps because we were the only people in the place all evening.

Just north, at Bloody Foreland - a point on the coast so named, apparently, because it is bathed red at sunset - the fields behind us were filled with puzzlingly smooth boulders while those in front sloped calmly down to the sea, where Tory Island was just visible. A few days earlier, we had traversed some breathtakingly barren, boggy fields - a sort of Irish desert - so the lush green hills near Glen were another welcome contrast.

On the Atlantic Drive, a loop north of Carrigart, the road followed a ridge high above the ocean. The scene was bathed in the light that is unique to the North Atlantic, making details look crisp but colors gentle.

It would take a lot of rain to wash away that sensation, of sitting on stones warmed by the sun and watching three cows graze in a valley that seemed to flow right onto the beach below.

REST AND FUEL FOR THE RIDE

GETTING STARTED

A four-hour drive from Dublin, Donegal can be difficult to reach, and difficult to get around in without a car - or, of course, a bike. We took the train from Dublin to Belfast - $60 round trip, at $1.30 to the euro - where Tony Boyd of Iron Donkey tours picked us up and drove to our starting point in Donegal.

Taxis make trips between Donegal towns for a set fee, usually starting around $25.

Information: North West Tourism, Neil T. Blaney Road, Letterkenny, County Donegal; (353-7491) 21160; www.irelandnorthwest.ie.

Iron Donkey Bicycle Touring, is at 15 Ballyknockan Road, Saintfield, County Down, Northern Ireland BT24 7HQ; (866) 255-3637 in North America, or (44-2890) 813-200; www .irondonkey.com. Self-guided tours with bed-and-breakfast and maps start at about $500 a week a person. Bikes rent for $155 a week, $310 for a tandem. The cost for luggage transfers depends on the a group's size - for two, about $105. Guided and custom tours are also available.

WHERE TO STAY AND EAT

- Woodhill House in Ardara, (353-7495) 41112, fax (353-7495) 41516, www.woodhillhouse.com, has nine rooms, all with private bath, in the 17th-century main house and a former coach house. Doubles cost $59 to $85 a person, with breakfast. Dinner for two with wine in the restaurant runs about $100 and up.

- Bunbeg House, in the town of the same name, (353-7495) 31305, fax (353-7495) 31420, www.bunbeghouse .com, has 14 bedrooms in a refurbished 1840 corn mill. Its restaurant overlooks a small harbor filled with fishing boats. Rooms start at $45 a person, with breakfast.

- The Seaview Hotel, on the main road in Bunbeg; (353-7495) 31159; fax (353-7495) 32238; and e-mail, ostanradharcnamara(AT)eircom.net, is one of Bunbeg's largest establishments. It has 40 rooms, with doubles running $130, with breakfast. Dinner for two with wine, about $125.

- In Belfast at the end of our trip, we stayed at the Ravenhill Guest House, 690 Ravenhill Road, (44-2890) 207-444, fax (44-2890) 282-590, and www.ravenhillguesthouse.com. It a refurbished Victorian townhouse with six rooms, all with private bath, and refined touches like organic breakfasts (included in the rate), and an iMac with Internet connection for guests. No smoking. Doubles, $110 at $1.88 to the pound.

- The Water's Edge in Rathmullen, (353-7491) 58182, serves great seafood along with panoramic views of Lough Swilly, and has benches outside for an alfresco pint before dinner. Dinner for two with a pint, $105. Closed on Monday from November to April.