Willow Wheelers Cycling Club - Cycling Club Holiday in Donegal for the kids

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Willow Wheelers Logo Transparent.gif (3602 bytes) Donegal 1998

The second hostel trip to Donegal, normally takes place straight after the trip to Clare. The Donegal trip is primarily for the older boys from 6th class upwards. The cycles tend to be longer on this trip than in Clare, and certainly the hilly terrain makes for more difficult cycling.

The group meets in Connolly Station early on Monday morning. We travel by train to Sligo town. Once in Sligo, no time is wasted, as we load up the mini-bus with our bags, and start out on the road to Donegal on our bikes. The journey is a long one, so we stop for lunch in Bundoran, before continuing on to the outskirts of Donegal town. As we approach the bridge that marks the border between Donegal and Sligo, Christy stops the group (he needs a cigarette at this stage) and tells of the past (way past) glories of Donegal. The group having taken due notice Christy's passionate rendition, remount their bikes and continue on into the town. We usually stop here for another break, because as anyone who has been on the trip before knows, there are some serious hills ahead.

Overcoming the landscape's determined effort to keep us from our final destination, we eventually arrive at our base for the week, the town of Glenties. We stay in a Hostel in Glenties run by ex-Blackrock man Patrick Campbell and his wife Angela. The Hostel is without a doubt one of the finest in Ireland. The rooms and facilities are absolutely impeccable, and our hosts take excellent care of us, making sure that our ever need is taken care of.

We eat our breakfast and evening meals in a family run Hotel just around the corner. The Hotel also provides us with a packed lunch to bring with us on our cycles each day. The staff in the Hotel and used to our yearly visits and look after us very well.

As in the Clare trip, Christy tries to arrange it so that each day we cycle to a place of interest.

On one of the days we cycled to the fishing port of Killybegs. The cycle to Killybegs is long, about 20 miles (making for a 40 mile round trip) and there are some exceptionally steep hills to be negotiated along the way. When we arrived at the port we met up with the "second in command" of one of the large fishing boats that operates from the port. Each year he kindly gives the boys a comprehensive guided tour of the boat and the hi-tech equipment that they have on board.

You can the immense size of the boat in the pictures. You can also see the lads finding out about the equipment on board.

Robert Nolan gets a chance to try out the captains chair, while Luke, Tommy, Pom, James and Paul admire the overhead displays.

While this is all very educational, some of the older lads decided to make the most of the confined conditions on another part of the boat, and have some revenge on a number of the the adults, who's only crime as to care for and look after the boys as their own for the duration of the week !?

The lads get the better of Christy first, followed swiftly by Richard Kelly, and Tommy Flemming. The adults got their own back, but we won't talk about that here !!

On a few other days the weather turned out to be absolutely, so we took the opportunity to cycle to some of the local beeches. The coastline of Donegal is littered with clean, unspoilt and uncluttered beaches, which the lads enjoyed immensely. For the adults it was a chance to take a rest and bask in the sun.

Morgan, Pom, and Tommy combine to dig a hole, until Morgan decides to put Pom in the hole. But Pom gets his revenge later in the sea.

As you can see from the photo's the lads had no problem amusing themselves, while the adults took it easy.

The older lads put their energy in digging a huge hole. Rumour has it that Christy was destined for the hole, but he resisted and never reached the destination. Ed O'Hanlon was buried, but decided to resurrect himself after swallowing copious quantities of sand.

In the meantime Luke managed to get some serious air-time launching himself from the dunes. Burkey also managed to get some air-time, but did not spot the landing quite so well.

Morgan managed to make quite a spectacular splash in the sea. While some of the adults looked on in comfort from the beech, the other lads practised their "Baywatch" rescue routine.

For the older lads, after two fully weeks of cycling (Clare and Donegal) it's not surprising that towards the end of the week they opt to stay in bed for as long as possible in the morning. They have even been known to return to bed after breakfast in the Hotel. However, woe betide anyone who disturbs them during their rest, as demonstrated by Luke who is smiling at the prospect of landing a right handed body shot that Mike Tyson would have been proud of.

On the last day of the Donegal trip, we are spared the torture of cycling all the way back to Sligo train station. We travel by coach as far as Bundoran, where the club pays for the boy's entrance to the indoor water park. After a few hours of annoying the lifeguards, we leave the waterpark and move across the road to have some food in "Val's" place. Finally after sending our last few coppers in the local amusements we cycle the 20 miles from Bundoran to Sligo town to get the train home.

The train journey home is usually a quiet affair (we're all to tired for it to be any other way). On arrival at Connolly we are greeted by expectant parents on the station platform, anxious to see their sons and catch up on all the news of the trip. For the adults its also been a great week, with everyone arriving home safely. Its also been a tiring week, between all the cycling and looking after our very energetic charges. The adults it has to be said are smiling just as much as the expectant parents, as the kids are reunited with their respective families.

For Christy, this point marks the true end of the cycling year, and it's off to recuperate for the summer, ready for next September when it starts all over again.

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Last modified: April 26, 1999