After our visit with the Mullins in Buncrana we drove across the border into Northern Ireland and got a hotel room in Derry. In case you aren't aware, Northern Ireland is part of the U.K., while the Republic of Ireland is an independent country. So we were surprised to find that the only indication that we were in a different country was that the road signs were now in miles and not kilometers, including the speed limit signs. Unfortunately, the car we were driving didn't have a dual unit speedometer, so I was constantly having to convert the speed we were traveling in my head.
Having no days off up to this time, we had decided to take Monday off. We were going to spend some time in the morning exploring Derry and then drive along the north coast taking in the sights as we made our way to Cushendall for the night.
Monday morning our mobile phone wasn't working properly (others couldn't hear me when I called them) and we were not able to top up our minutes using the automatic system. We had registered a credit card with O2, our provider earlier, but couldn't get it to work. We found an O2 store in Derry, but they weren't able to help us since our service was with O2 in the Republic.
"You'll need to drive to Letterkenny, to the O2 store there and they can help you," the attendant told me.
"How far is it?"
"Only a 20-minute drive there."
So we decided, we had no choice if we had any hope of using our phone in Northern Ireland. We set out for Letterkenny, arriving there 45 minutes later. 20-minutes... yeah right.
By the time we got there, we needed to find somewhere to eat. After lunch we spent a frustrating couple of hours sorting through the problems, never really solving anything. The best thing we could do is buy a top up card and hope that the glitch we'd had with our phone had corrected itself. We never did get the credit card registered as it would have required jumping through major hoops since the credit card was issued in the U.S. However, the phone did start working again in the North. Never did solve that mystery.
We had wanted to see some things in Derry, but were more interested in the Giant's Causeway. This time of year daylight is short and so we made a bee-line to the coast. Arriving at dusk, and not knowing how long of a hike it was to the Causeway, we realized after we had walked about a quarter of a mile down a steep incline that we weren't going to be able to really see anything by the time we would get there.
It was then decided that we could work it out to return to this area of the coast in the morning and still make it to our appointment that afternoon in Balymena.
Winded from the climb, we got back in the car and headed for Cushendall. After an unplanned detour, we made it to our B&B and settled down for the night.
So much for our "day off".
The next day was to be much better.
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