After a busy few weekends attending Rugby 7's events it was great to get away with family and have a 'quiet' weekend on Arran. My cousin Callum was playing in the Border League Final on Friday (they won!) so we had an early start (6.30) to get across to Arran on the Saturday (the rest - my Aunt and Uncle, cousin Iain and his girlfriend Donna - had gone across on Friday night). We arrived about 11 after a nice smooth crossing on the Ferry, where we were met by Iain and Donna and taken to the house we had booked for the weekend. A brand new 2 story stand alone house with 5 bedrooms, it was lovely. After settling in we all went for a walk to the Glenashdale Falls, which while not that spectacular were very nice (although if you had asked if it was worth it as I was walking up a huge hill you might have gotten a different answer!). We then walked into town (we were staying in Whiting Bay which is a small village on the East coast of the Island)and had a browse around, chose a place to eat dinner and looked for crabs amongst the rocks! We had a great dinner (haggis, neeps and tatties for me!) and a few cocktails at the pub, before heading home for an early night (may I remind you I was up at 6!!).
Sunday we decided to travel around the Island (about 56 miles in total). Iain, Donna, Callum and myself jumped into one car leaving Pat and Alan with the golf clubs!
Our first stop was Lochranza, as we were coming in to the town we saw several Deer by the side of the road. We stopped a little way down the road to look at the ruins of Lochranza castle and decided it was worth going back down the road to have a closer look. Unfortunately by the time we got back most of them had moved on. After contenting ourselves with taking photos of the two that were left we continued down the road. Just as we were about to leave the town of Lochranza we noticed a Deer right beside the road. We stopped the car and looked out the window, thinking it would run a mile if we moved Callum carefully held out his hand with a Polo mint on it. Surprising us all it wandered over to have a look. After feeding it a couple of Polo mints and a handful of chocolate raisins (what a waste!) we continued on our journey leaving the deer to the next lot of tourists with Polo mints!
We were then even more surprised just a little further down the road to have to stop suddenly to avoid running over 2 Peacocks! Arran certainly seems to be the Wildlife capital!
I had expressed an interest in seeing the Machrie Moor Standing Stones as my Travel guide book suggested they were in the top 3 things to see, so we stopped for directions, parked and set off in what we were hoping was the right direction through some fields. After about 20 minutes of walking we were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to reach them and the others were beginning to blame me for out hike through the wilderness (ok that might be an exaggeration, it was just fields with sheep in them and there was a path, but they had chosen to come all the same!). After another 15 minutes or so we found the Stone circle (well what was left anyways!). There were 3 stones standing together and one off on it's own, apparently there was originally more than one circle. After wondering out loud how they got there and the response being "you could have wondered that from the car!" we decided to head back and continue around the Island!
We got back to our house in the late afternoon and decided on a game of Monopoly. My Uncle not that interested left the rest of us to it and we played a rather aggressive and competitive game, with some serious bargaining and harassing going on. When the game finished (most of us had run out of money!) we walked down to the pub for dinner. We were greeted at the door by a pile of kit bags and loud singing, which continued throughout our dinner, we eventually discovered the group of middle aged men were over to play in a golf competition. After one man threatening to steal my left over chips for a chip butty (yes, I still cannot finish a meal Belinda!!) we decided it was time to head home for some T.V. and drinks.
Monday came around and the girls decided it was time to head to the Islands spa and leave the boys to some golf. After a slight disappointment of not being able to get booked in for any treatments we settled on a swim in the spa's pool. Having had a relaxing swim, we met the boys for lunch, purchased a few souvenirs and caught the ferry home.
Overall a fantastic weekend, even if it involved slightly more exercise than a relaxing weekend should!!
