ADRC to Island of Arran. August 2011

Coffee on the ferry.

"Will we do the A or the C walk today?"



Corrie waterfalls.



Now we are up in the clouds.

We all made it to the summit of Goatfell(820M)

View of Brodick Bay on our way down.

What could our RHS be doing here?

Now back in Brodick the sun came out.

Today Ayr and District ramblers set off for the lovely Island of Arran for two walks. One was a "C" grade walk to Machrie with our Chairman as leader of the 16 walkers who chose this option and I took 11  up Goatfell from Corrie some 5 miles north of Brodick.Once the bus dropped us off at the start we made our way up the first part of the track which was a wee bit muddy after all the recent  rain of the last few days. Today it was cloudy but at least it was dry. Once we were on the plateau we carried on to an area at the base of the saddle which I called basecamp. Originally this was to be lunch stop but as it was getting misty we decided to carry on and get the hard part of the climb over. At the base of North Goatfell we had our break before ascending to the summit of Goatfell itself. It was a wee bit misty with the sun trying hard to make an appearance but unsuccessfully. Starting the descent we had to stay close together for safety reasons as it is very steep with some slippy rocks. Once down to about 600Metres the mist cleared and we had good views of Brodick with the Holy Isle as a backdrop.Good progress was made to the Arran Brewery when I decided if we kept going at this pace we could catch the earlier ferry at 4.40PM . The rain came on at this point but we made excellent progress over the golf course before reaching the terminal with time to spare. The other group arrived in on their bus so we were able to travel home together which was nice.Thanks to all who joined me on my walk you were a hardy bunch to complete  an arduous walk in such a short time.
PS. For those that are interested the 6.00PM ferry was cancelled so we could have been stuck in Brodick until the 7.20sailing!!