Arran jumper

It's a short trip from Ardrossan, just up from Ayr, over to the Isle of Arran. They've put on extra boats for the summer, so I got a lift on a little one (no egg and chips a la Caledonian Macbrayne, which are excellent, but never mind). It takes about an hour, and there were only five vehicles on the ferry. The ferryman told me I should 'birl round and reverse on', which amused me - I didn't realise that 'birling' was something you did outside of Scottish Country Dancing, and the idea of birling in a 20ft motorhome in an enclosed space was a bit of a laugh. Anyway, I birled, and a lot of men in orange overalls waved their arms and told me where to park.



It's quite funny seeing the van from the top (the roof is filthy, for a start) and I could see what the dog gets up to when she's on a boat. For a while now I've been following a line from Annie Proulx's book 'The Shipping News' where a grizzled Newfoundlander reassures the incomers that it's OK to leave the dog in their vehicle: ''E'll sleep the 'ole way across. That's 'ow dogs are.' He is right.

The tall thing in the photo is Goat Fell, the highest peak on the island. A lot of people come to Arran to walk up it. (Not me, this time - I had other challenges.)


Soon Arran envelops you in its welcoming arms, and you are in the port town of Brodick.


Arran is a nice island: big enough to spend proper time in, and with very varied scenery. I headed down from the ferry to the southern tip of the island and found a space at Seal Beach campsite near the little village of Kildonan. You can park there looking directly at the sea, with the tiny island of Pabba and its lighthouse in the foreground. The weather came and went - intervals of sun, showers, rain, wind...you never get bored with the weather on Arran. And from my beachfront position I could see it all sweeping across.



I met lots of nice people on this site - and it was this site that made me think that the world of the Caravan Club is not all there is to BWV-ing. Seal Beach was very friendly (to the extent that I went to the pub with other campers two nights out of the three I was there ) and has all sorts of interesting set-ups on it - not just BWVs. Paul and Lizzie from Stafford had a trailer tent, Julie, Colin and Cath from Nottinghamshire had a touring caravan plus a Ford transit home-converted as a van, and a family with a French dad and a Scottish mum had a smart Landrover with a tent mounted on top of it and accessed via a ladder - it looked like you could pull the ladder up to stop any passing lions getting in. (The Scottish Wildcat is not known for its raids on campsites, but you never know. Bet they could climb a ladder just like that).

Anyway, I spent a lot of time at Kildonan just looking at the sea, but I also did the 6Km boulder scramble up to Whiting Bay on that trip. I talked before about that being a bit of a humbling experience - also quite scary.




After I fell over I did lie where I'd fallen for a bit wondering if I was dead, and trying to move everything...then I realised that the rock was quite comfy, as rocks go, the sun was coming out, and I hadn't lost any teeth. So I sat up and lit a cigarette. But 6km of bouldering looks like this in both directions when you're in the middle. And Bonnie genuinely got stuck in some places, because there was nowhere she felt safe jumping down to. A couple of times I had to go back and lift her, which meant getting a foothold, bracing myself against a rock somehow, and then finding somewhere safe to put her down, all without losing my balance. Makes carrying Spike on the tube seem like a walk in the park.


I was so contented in my beachside position that I wasn't tempted at all to go anywhere in the van. So I just did local walks - and even more local naps - until it was time to drive up to Lochranza in the north (I went back the way I'd come, via Brodick, because I want to save the west of the island for another time. I cycled the whole way around it in about 1985, but that's another story).



On the way back through Brodick I did a bit of shopping - I'd been looking out for the factory shop of Arran Aromatics, for example, who make lovely bath things and cosmetics, and I also saw a place that had an outdoor gear shop so I bought a pile of OS maps for the Hebrides. Next door was a pottery, too, and I had a good look round that, and found a little milk jug that amused me: in style, a sort of cross between Rennie Mackintosh and Wallace and Gromit. I don't need a milk jug, but it made me smile so I bought it.

Perhaps more importantly, this little cluster of shops was at one of the entrances of Brodick Castle grounds. As the rain had abated a bit, I thought it was time for a walk. Had a very good (if wet) walk around the gardens, which are (like many of the big Scottish gardens) home to a wonderful collection of rhododendrons. They like the acid soil. (Sorry, distracted for a moment there by the arrival next to me of a silver camper van from Germany. It's got 'Big Nugget' written on the side. And I though the Datsun Cherry was about the worst name I'd heard for a vehicle).




After a damp walk through the gardens (including an interesting experience in the loos - they have motion sensors (no pun intended) and left me in the dark and unable to do much about it after far too short a time. And am I the only one who takes it personally when one of those automatic air fresheners goes off when you're in there?) I drove off to Lochranza (through a scary glen with a narrow road: it was odd being surrounded by mountains after so much sea). I had been told by Lizzie to get a poached salmon sandwich from the little sandwich shop by the pier, and boy it was good. Nothing posh - just really good salmon, nice dressing, and brown bread. And a very nice woman from the South of England who was another who'd given it all up to come up to the islands. She said she used to have 'a proper job', but she spoke as if it were ancient history. And she seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction out of serving up local seafood in her sandwiches (she offered me something called 'squat lobster', which she was peeling when I arrived, but it looked a little bit too insecty for my taste).

The little port is really one you just turn up at, because the crossing is another short one - back to Claonaig on Kintyre, which is an arm of the mainland which has Arran in its armpit.









And off we went on yet another tiny boat - next stop, Kintyre peninsula: one of my favourite parts of the world.