19 May - Cock of Arran

Distance 14.6 km






On fair Loch Ranza streamed the early day,
Thin wreaths of cottage-smoke are upward curl'd
From the lone hamlet, which her inland Bay
And circling mountains sever from the world."

Lord of the Isles, Sir Walter Scott


Seven Ooters (Paul, Ian, Ronnie, Robert, Johnnie, Davie and Jimmy) gathered at the ferry terminal in Ardrossan for the 0945 crossing to Brodick.

Trips to Arran have not been without their problems in the past - we remember the time Jimmy famously watched from the quayside as the ferry departed - and there was nearly another misfortune this time as Paul set off to Ardrossan sans (or is that ohne?) rucksack. Luckily his dear wife (she sometimes reads the blog) noticed this oversight and raced to Ardrossan where she handed over the forgotten rucksack at the entrance to the ferry terminal.

The plan had been to climb something - just about every hill had been mentioned at one stage or other - but the cloud was low and it didn't look as if it would lift any time soon. So Plan H was put into operation and we opted to walk around the Cock of Arran (this could be another blog Ian's brother won't be allowed to read), from Sannox to Lochranza. As the freeloaders piled on to the bus to Sannox, the driver seemed pleased to see the cash proferred by Paul. The bus was busy, with a group of walkers from Bristol helping to fill it up.

Parked by the shore at Sannox was a Belgian-registered camper van with the front wheels resting on a ramp to level off the vehicle. Quite why the occupants couldn't just fall out of bed like other occupants of camper vans and caravans, I don't know. On our last walk along this stretch of the coast we had been treated to some spectacular sightings of basking sharks but Jimmy, our resident naturalist, informed us that there would be no sighting this time - the water being too cold, or something like that. And a bird that Paul thought might have been a diver was confirmed by Jimmy as being a cormorant. He stated this just as the bird-that-wasn't-a-diver dived under the surface. At sea a naval vessel was on exercises. It was variously described as a frigate, minesweeper and destroyer ... it definitely wasn't a submarine, or a canoe.

Robert had done this stretch of the walk during the previous weekend and informed us that at Laggan Cottage, our traditional lunch stop, an author staying in a tent there was selling, nay giving away, one of his novels. And so it was that we spotted the tent and its occupant who came out to greet us as we settled down for our lunch. Books were laid out and we were invited to help ourselves to copies of the 'Honesty Edition' of Dreamwords by Paul Story - making a payment if we enjoyed the book or passing it on if we didn't. Johnnie who has dabbled in printing and binding books himself and whose son has written at least one novel, was soon deep in conversation with the gentleman who had printed and published the books at his own expense. Paul Story's Dreamwords website can be found at www.dreamwords.com and Laggan Cottage is the inspiration for 'Creggan' in the novel.

The stretch beyond Laggan Cottage was new for some of us and we were soon into scrambling mode over a small rockfall. Those with a sensitive nose detected an unpleasant odour - "Death" said one and we soon found the source of the stench - a dead stag lying amongst the rocks - and not that long dead going by the state of the corpse. Just as we completed our traverse of the rocks we bumped into a group of walkers travelling in the opposite direction. One of them was a Swiss lady who had lived for some time in California but had recently returned to live in Switzerland. She just loved Scotland. As most of the Ooters moved on, Ronnie and Ian remained behind to get more of this lady's life story. We waited close to the remains of buildings which old maps show to have been associated with coal mining and with saltpans. Whilst resting here we observed three canoeists hugging the shoreline whilst approaching from the south and after a little banter had passed to and fro (we weren't really Somali pirates) the threesome rafted* and turned their backs on us.

* this is a technical term which the canoeists amongst the Ooters knew all about.

We passed the the large sandstone boulder which is the actual 'Cock of Arran'. I only know this from reading about it subsequently. Jimmy was clearly not doing the job he is paid to do and should have pointed this out to us.

We also passed Hutton's Unconformity without Jimmy telling us. Certainly the tilted layers of sandstone were remarkable at this point of the walk, but when James Hutton visited this area in 1787 he deduced from the very different angles of rock stratification that the earth was much older than had been thought at the time.

It's even older now.

The big rockfall at An Scriodan meant more scrambling. This was a tougher barrier than the previous one but we were able to make our way down on to the beach to avoid some of it.

It was becoming clear that we were not going to catch the bus that connected with the 1640 ferry and discussion turned to what we could possibly find to do in Lochranza for a couple of hours. We were stumped until someone suggested we might visit the Lochranza Hotel. At this point the pace moved up a gear as we turned the corner on to the east side of Loch Ranza. After a brief halt at the orientation table and a hurried discussion about the age of the earth, religion and creation, the group began to fragment as Robert, Ronnie, Paul and Jimmy (and Holly, of course) pushed on.

Those not at the front missed the entertaining spectacle of Ronnie tripping and falling into the boundary fence of the golf course we were about to cross. Having picked himself up he then tripped over the fence landing unceremoniously face-down.

Why was he in such a hurry?

Apart from a few patches of Scotch mist the walk had been dry but as we walked along the main road the rain became a little heavier, but conditions were so humid that donning waterproofs would not have made us any drier. Holly is not usually allowed to walk along a busy road without being on her lead, but her master was way behind. It should be reported that she behaved impeccably, keeping off the road and advancing through undergrowth and along the shore so as to avoid setting foot on tarmac.

The leaders waited outside the Boguillie Bar for the stragglers to appear. The bad news was that dogs were not allowed inside whilst food was being served, so with the usual amount of Ooters sympathy, Davie and Holly remained outside whilst the rest piled in. Eyebrows were raised at the prices but no one suggested we should walk out and stand at the bus stop instead. After a while we asked the barmaid if Davie and the dug could be allowed in. She mentioned 'wet and smelly' but we jumped to Davie's defence and he was admitted with Holly.

After a happy hour (or two) - see Johnnie's video for evidence - we managed to get the bus back into Brodick were we ordered our fish suppers before boarding MV Caledonian Isles for the return journey.

It was another great day out on Arran.