GreatRoads: Gráinne's Gap, Inishowen, Co Donegal:This week, Bob Montgomery's journey takes him north to Donegal and the rolling hills of the Inishowen peninsula
Buncrana, on the western side of Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula, is the area's largest town, and sprawls over the hillside on the eastern side of Lough Swilly. Buncrana's Irish name translates as "foot of the river of the trees", and it's apt, with pleasant walks along the edges of the River Crana under beech and maple trees.
Just on the northern edges of the town, off the R238 from Carndonagh, is a road signposted to Muff on the other side of the Inishowen peninsula. At first it looks rather unpromising and ordinary, but soon begins to rise as it leaves behind the houses that form the southeastern outskirts of Buncrana.
To the north, on Sorne Hill (268m), is an extensive wind turbine farm which is first startlingly apparent as the tops of the rotating propellers come into view.
I know many people find wind turbines an unwelcome intrusion on the landscape, but I have to admit I find them endlessly fascinating. Like them or not, it seems their time may now be here.
As the road rises towards its highest point, we pass a sign for "Grania's Gap" - yet another example of the inconsistent signposting that exists in so many places in Ireland. All of the maps I consulted gave the name of this place as "Gráinne's Gap" spelt thus, but the one "official" sign somehow manages to have a different spelling.
Whatever the accepted spelling - and surely this is a question for the people who live here - let's at least be consistent about it.
The mountainscape to the south of the road rises to the two hills of Scalp Mountain (482m) and Nadaphreaghane (381m), while to the northeast is Eskaheen Mountain (419m). Having passed between their gentle slopes, one crests the road's highest point and a fine vista opens up, stretching to Eglington and its airport, as well as on to Ballykelly and Limavady on the eastern shores of Lough Foyle.
As one descends gently along the road, it turns south towards the R239 which it joins just to the east of Muff. Like much of Inishowen, this drive is an unexpected pleasure.
Even Inishowen's name promises something else, Inishowen being, literally, "the island of Owen", but of course in reality it is a peninsula.
To the very north, jutting out into the Atlantic is the rugged Malin Head, Ireland's most northerly point and a place to which we will return in a few weeks.
It would be true to say that Inishowen is a microcosm of Ireland with the landscape changing more rapidly within short distances than one would imagine. I was captivated and plan to return.