I'm on the Isle of Arran, in the Firth of Clyde, for a week. It's one of my very favourite places, but it's provided a few trials over the years, and this week my patience has been tested - an awful start to the holiday when the guy who owns the cottage we're renting forgets we're due, and we only manage to get in after finding a guy called Pablo via a neighbour and a call to Corrie Golf Club. It's been a rush to get away as usual, and after a lot of unnecessary hassle on Saturday, Sunday produced some grey weather and a general feeling of shittiness, although we do get up Glen Catacol for a couple of hours - one of my favourite places, and definitely one of the dogs' favourites, so it's not all bad!
Today is Paula's birthday, so I'm celebrating with a morning's running over the old Boguille road to North Sannox, with a run back along the wonderful North Shore and a trip over the hill. The sun's even shining, and the first few miles are glorious. Then I lose the road. How on earth can I lose a road?! Well, on Arran, anything is possible, but the old road over the Boguille (a pass over the hills between Sannox and Lochranza) hasn't been used for a couple of hundred years, and the bog and bracken has taken over in places. The running stops, and the cursing starts - but after a bit of sploshing about in the bog I find a wet runnel which proves to be the right wet runnel to follow. The going is pretty reasonable for Arran, which tends to be rough, but even so there is high bracken (which they're treating with herbicide at the moment), stray boulders, holes, and general wetness, so it's not too fast.
A short way down from the missing bit of old road, I startle a short-eared owl, which flies a hundred yards away and then stares at me, waiting for me to vacate its home patch. Apparently their diet is largely voles - and there are lots here - the dogs spend a lot of time trying to catch them but have usually been disappointed. An easy climb to about 800' means I have a glorious 80o' of descent to the first farm at Sannox, which is hugely enjoyable, before I hit a short stretch of tarmac and round the corner down to the shore. I know that there's a length of forestry track to follow almost as far as the Fallen Rocks - walking, it's a bore, but today it's lovely and quick. Even so, I'm glad to get to the narrow path, and the going along the shore is wonderful, with only the sea, and a few birds for company. The main road sticks close to the shore around most the island's 70 mile coast, but here there has never been one, the only access being on foot or by boat.
All too soon, Laggan cottage comes into view, and I have to make the tough climb up to the 850' contour to slip back between the hills to Lochranza. The start is brutally steep, but it soon gets better, and makes a nice job of following a grassy terrace up to a high col. From here, the path used to be a dreadful mess of bog and stones, but it's been surfaced in stone over the last couple of years, and the descent to Lochranza's Newton Shore is pretty quick. I've been running for 2 hours and 40 minutes for my 14.5 miles, and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. We spend a lovely afternoon wandering through the gardens at Brodick Castle, and have a good meal in the hotel in the evening. The Arran brewery at the Cladach makes some really good beer, and it's hard to deny yourself a few bottles at the end of a good day!
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