Jen and Dave: Adventuring

We’ll start with a bonus shot from last night. Check out THIS ice cream cone.

After a lovely breakfast, we started our walk in beautiful sunshine but not hot weather (16 degrees or so). After taking the obligatory photos at the official start point, we were off.

The first stage of the trail is beachfront urban, and lovely. You look at Goat Fell – which you can summit as an optional difficulty-raiser – as you go. On this stage we saw a Grey Heron.

The next stage starts climbing into the woods, towards Goat Fell. It was so green and mossy – it really felt like home.

We eventually turn off onto a connector which skirts a clear cut, before joining a semi-active logging road. The flowers in the year after harvest were unreal. We also saw a Red Grouse. We received a bit of rain this section, but rain coats and wide-brimmed hats did their job.

Joining a different gravel road, views of the water began to open up. Gorgeous! On the other side of the road was a farm forest, and it was creepy! Straight lines of bottom-dead trees, with stumps for branches and no underbrush due to a complete lack of light coming through the canopy.

We turned down another trail, which eventually led us to the ocean-side road. We ate lunch along the water, watching oystercatchers and their babies. We followed the road for the last section of our walk, to Sannox. In Sannox we found a cafe serving juice and homemade cake, which was so good we gobbled it before we took photos. Jen had Cranachan, made from whisky-soaked oats and crowned with fresh raspberries. Dave had chocolate (of course).

Dean, our driver, then picked us up and took us to Lochranza. We’re staying in a beautiful heritage building – a Victorian hunting lodge, to be precise, in a room with big windows to see the gorgeous valley around us. Amazing.

After dinner (which the proprietor kindly served us, even though they usually have Mondays off, since the only other restaurant that serves dinner suddenly stopped as of yesterday), we took a walk to the waterfront. This place is spectacular.