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#SURFING - Bundoran in Co Donegal has been named one of the best surfing towns in the world by National Geographic.

Recommended for "the salty surf traveller who doesn't mind surfing in cold water or rain", the north-west surf hotspot is praised for the warmth of its locals as much as the quality of its waves.

Surfers are recommended to visit between September and November, when the Atlantic is in full churn - and most of the tourists have gone home!

Bundoran - which hosted last year's European Surfing Championships - is one of only three European beaches to make the list, along with Biarritz in France and San Sebastian in Spain.

Meanwhile, Australians are up in arms after the Gold Coast was snubbed by the National Geopgraphic list.

"As a surfer, I've been everywhere and this is paradise," local surf personality John Nielsen told GoldCoast.com.au. "In terms of waves, we've probably got the most selection of waves year-round that I've ever seen."

Byron Bay in New South Wales, described as the "spiritual and historical home of surfing", was the only Australian town to make the cut

The full National Geographic list of the world's best surf towns can be found HERE.

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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.