A tale of three harbours and some ferrous sheep on Arran

In Mid April David and I caught the midday ferry to Arran. As we approached Brodick the mountains were cloaked in low mist.

We trollied the kayaks off the ferry and were prepared to launch almost as soon as the MV Caledonian Isles had cleared her jetty.

We planned an anticlockwise circumnavigation of Arran, a distance of about 90km. A southerly breeze began to clear the mist from the mountains and filled our sails.

We soon passed the first of Corrie's two harbours. Note the "sheep" bollards!The fact that it has two...

...tells you that neither is very good! The second has a houseboat and a replica longship in it and not a lot of water when we passed by. Geology students on their annual field trips and all equipped with yellow hard hats were everywhere!

The lovely sweep of Sannox Bay announced our arrival at the start Arran's remote north coast.

Sannox also has a harbour (with sheep bollard) but it is not much better than either of its neighbours at Corrie.

We stopped for a break at Sannox Bay.

The view from the sands into the mountains round Glen Sannox is one of the finest in Scotland.

Lonely Loch Einich

As we made our way further up Gleann Einich we came across the Alt Ruigh na Sroine, the first of many streams to ford.


Later on the Beanaidh Bheag river was to prove far tougher and necessitated a change of socks.


As we gained height the mountain landscape became more dramatic.


Under wild skies the granite ridges were dusted with the first snows of winter.


The air was filled with the sound of burns tumbling down from high corries and rattling the boulders in their beds.


At last we breasted a moraine and below us lay lonely Loch Einich.


We were dwarfed by the scale of the landscape.


Loch Einich lies at a height of 598m. It is seldom visited, even in summer. On the 9th of September this year, Rothiemurchus Estate's head stalker, Peter Ferguson made a very sad discovery. He found a dead body inside a tent which had obviously been pitched for several weeks. The man had been a writer and photographer. I hope his death was peaceful as he was so far away from help and his family.


We started the long descent to Glen More as the clouds lowered from the high corries.


In the valleys it was still autumn and bright October sunshine had yet to give way to winter.


This little lochan reflected the beauty and tranquility of this wonderful place. By 16:30 we were a world away, back in Glasgow.

05/08/2008