Donegal TY trip.

Dunlewey Irish Culture Trip

For our Irish Culture trip we went to Dunlewey in County Donegal. We got a bus there on Monday morning. I sat with my friends on the us and we listened to music and chatted for most of the journey. The journey to Donegal was 5 hours long but we had a break half way through in Monaghan at a service station. When we arrived at Errigal Hostel we were assigned out rooms. We got to choose who we chose a room with so I was with my friends. Our room in the hostel had two levels, so it was kind of like a loft. I got the top bunk!We shared a shower and a bathroom with the room next to ours, which worked out quite well. We unpacked our stuff and scoped out the hostel before meeting up with the rest of the group in the dining room.

Errigal Hostel

We went down to the local heritage centre, An Ionad Cois Locha. There we had a tour of the house, an introduction to weaving and the making of tweed and a boat ride around the lake. It was really interesting place because it had so many stories attached to in.

Dunlewey Lakeside Centre

By this time it was lashing rain and we all got soaked. We got back to the hostel, dried off and lounged around before we had to go back to the lakeside centre for dinner. Once again we got soaked in the rain. The food was gorgeous! I had a lasagna and it was lovely. We went back to the hostel and had a small table quiz. After that we were able to hang around until 10:30 with our friends. Then we went back to our room and went to bed.We got up at around 8 o clock the next day. We had breakfast in the hostel which was basically toast and cereal. We the. Got a bus to the Gartan Outdoor Education centre. The bus ride was really rocky and there were a lot of windy roads. When we got there we were split into two groups. One group was to do canoeing first and then a bog obstacle course. The other group was to do the same activities in the reverse order. I was in the first group so we did the canoeing first. We learnt the basic skills of canoeing and then went out on the lake in our boats. It was really windy and the water was wavy so I thought it was pretty tough. After this we had lunch, soup and sandwiches, before learning how to make a raft. We made the raft using a wooden frame and four buoyant barrels. We had a race on our rafts after the bog course, but the other team won. The big course was so much fun! It was really muddy and cold but I didn't really mind. The mud was up to my waist for the most part but I kept falling over so I was muddy all over by the end. We had to overcome some obstacles like tightropes and tyres. We had so much fun trying and failing to do these things! We had a small mud fight and then washed ourselves off in the lake. We headed back to our hostel where we got ready for our ceili. The ceili was at the lakeside centre and we had a live musician, who played the accordian. The students who were staying at Gartan joined in at the ceili so it was really nice to see them. The dances we learnt were really fun and most people joined in.
The next day we got together in the dining hall at 9:00. We got on our bus and left our hostel. We went  to Glenveagh National Park. We had a tour of the old stone castle and learnt the history of it. The castle was so big and the interior was very fancy. After that we took a small trip around the castle gardens and saw the lovely scenery.

We had a small lunch at the visitor centre and we headed back on the bus to Dublin. We were all so tired from the trip that we rested and slept on the bus back.
The trip was really fun over all and i enjoyed it so much. I'm glad we did so many activities because they're the sort of things you'd remember for a long time. I wish i could do the whole trip again.