A bus with a message!!

A bus with a message!!

Monday 10 August 2009

A week into our adventure

We have now been on Arran for just over a week and are having a wonderful time. The speed limit on the island is 30 mph but you struggle to achieve it on the rough roads making the 14 miles to Brodick a long drive. Bus drivers meeting from opposite directions stop to chat. It all makes the pace of life delightfully slow.

On Saturday morning I played at being a fireman!!! A gas stove caught fire in a neighbouring tent and a lady’s attempt to put it out by throwing a towel over it didn’t work. The gas bottle hadn’t been connected properly and the escaping gas had caught fire, a quick smother of the flames and turning the gas off did the trick. The husband was very grateful and was able to repay me ……. See car problems later!!!

Saturday 8th we paddled from a place called Sannox to Lochranza bay, about 9 miles in good sea conditions with intermittent rain and a following wind. The trip was made easier by a kind offer from a couple from Edinburgh (David and Lin) who, after dropping the boats and Kathy off at Sannox and bringing the car back to Lochranza), ran me back to Sannox, cutting out a delay and a bus journey, thanks David and Lin.

Saturday evening the car failed to start … flat battery … various warning lights had been coming on so not entirely unexpected, so battery on charge over night. Sunday car started once .. then had to be jumped by our friend with the fire damaged stove, debt repaid in full.

Sunday was a mountain day, Kathy planned a ridge mountain route up Glen Sannox, climbing to The Saddle then taking in Cir Mhor 799m – a steep sharp summit; Caisteal Abhail 834m scattered with granite tors; Ceum na Caillich (the Witch’s Step) and Suidhe Fheargas 634m. As the car wasn’t starting without assistance from being jumped by another car we knew we had to be down by 7.30pm to make the last bus or flag a motorist to stop. Because the ridge is very scrambly indeed (overall grade 2) and the descent steep and rough, the day turned into quite an epic and we missed the bus- but luckily found a motorist. As we reached the Witch’s Step mist and rain swirled malevolently in and out of the deep notch. At both sides there is a rock spire- one a grade 3 scramble, the other a technical rock climb. We negotiated the first using a rope but as a man we’d passed earlier had said the second involved leaping for the top block we edged round the side instead. The adrenaline was certainly flowing most of the day.

We expect to be in Oban for the week from 16th to 23rd August, and Chris and Sarah are coming to join us. If anyone would like to come up for a couple of days they could share the driving and reduce petrol costs, contact us or Chris for arrangements nearer the time.

Thanks to all who have been contacting us by e-mail, texts and the Blog, it is really nice to hear from you all. The internet connection via my mobile dongle is proving variable, as expected. Uploading text is not too problematic but putting pictures on the blog is not working very well at all, maybe when we get a really strong signal, and have time to play I will sort the pictures out, but until then I’m afraid it’s text only.

Hope you are having as much fun as we are, Nigel and Kathy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thought you'd left stress behind. Firefighting and broken car sounds like fat into fire. Sorry no pun intended.
Pete H.

Anonymous said...

Good to hear the adventure is going well. We got back last week from our Idaho trip. Backpacking the Sawtooth Wilderness was a treat. We covered almost forty miles and saw lush canyons, wildflower meadows and snow-rimmed alpine lakes. We followed that with a two day raft trip on the Salmon river. The rapids were Class II-IV and Kyle spent most of the trip in a kayak. Hope to share photos with you at some point. Best of Luck!

Patty

Anonymous said...

Hi Nigel & Kath

Sounds like you are having a wonderful time, at last after the 311 days counting down it's finally happening.
hope you left your new adventure watch at home, you don't need it now!
Keep up the good work with the blog, its good to see how you are getting on.

Best wishes

Ian & Julie