In Part 1 I’d left my drive along the coast from Donegal Town to Muckross Head just before reaching Killybegs.  I’ve posted on many of the stops along this route before, so I’ll leave those out now, and pick up the route after the viewing point at the roadside overlooking Fintragh Bay.

 

Back on the road, leaving the viewing point which overlooks Fintragh Bay.

 

I left the main road from Killybegs to Kilcar soon after this point, opting instead for the more scenic coastal road.  There are great views along this road, over the coastline, and across Donegal Bay to the Sligo coast on the far side, and even as far as North Mayo.

 

 

 

 

 

Turf, covered over and ready for the fire.

 

 

 

 

After many stops I reached the narrow neck of the Muckross Head peninsula.  There are two beaches here, one on each side of the peninsula’s neck.  I followed the road down to a small car park beside the beach on the eastern side, known as Tra Ban, or white beach.

 

Views over the western beach at the neck of the Muckross peninsula.

 

Tra Ban is a great little beach, sheltered by the headland with safe swimming.

 

Exploring Tra Ban beach.

 

 

 

Rocks at the back of the beach, with the covering sand carved into unusual shapes by the tide.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the rocks had fantastic red and green colours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving the beach, I continued out along the peninsula to Muckross Head, but it was such an interesting place that I’ll save it for a separate post, and instead skip to the final part of my journey.  While exploring Muckross Head, I got great views back towards Croaghmuckros Hill, and I decided to do a bit of unplanned hill walking to the summit.  To get to the easiest route on the north side of the hill, I would need to continue west and circle around it, going through the village of Kilcar.

 

The view down on Tra Ban from the road out to Muckross Head.

 

I didn’t go down on to the beach on the western side of the peninsula’s neck, opting for the hill walking instead.  The beach is called Tra na Nglor which means noisy beach, and although I didn’t visit it, there were great views across it from the coast road as I set off for Kilcar.

 

Continuing along the coast road to Kilcar.

 

The views over Tra na Nglor enticed me to stop a couple of times straight away.

 

 

 

 

Before reaching Croaghmuckros, I made one more stop at a pier on the outskirts of Kilcar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next post, I’ll cover the missing bit of the trip out to Muckross Head.