Arran Part Seven

Were we finally going to see a day we could get to the beach?

Well yes we were, as a matter of fact.

The lady who owned the lodges had given us some pointers as to which places were good to go to and amongst these was her favourite beach, located behind the Creamery at Kilmory. After a wrong turning and some directions from a friendly local, we trundled our way down the long, narrow, stony road and found the beach in question.

The road literally took us straight to the beach - I just turned the van broadside to the water and parked up. The children got out and immediately started playing in the water and building sand castles while I opened the side door of the van, placed the newly bought (waterproof) travel rug on the wooden floor and set out the food we’d taken.

The van turned out to be the best idea I’ve ever had, nearly. It acted like a windbreak of course and I was forced to break out the sun cream, clarting it over us all to avoid the dreaded burns.

We pigged out. We played with sand. We played with sea water. We watched the tide come in and I read some of my Julian Cope book.

Around three o’clock the sun clouded over a bit and this was our queue to go back to the lodge.

The other thing we’d planned today was to finally get some cycling done. Turns out Arran isn’t that learner-child-cyclist friendly, being mostly up and down some extremely steep hills, not to mention how busy the main road was, so we doubled up our plan to go to the Old Pier Café for tea with our other plan of cycling short, easy route into Lamlash itself.

The cycling was achieved, involving not a few moans and gripes admittedly and we reached the café, which, at five o’clock, was shutting up shop for the day. We managed to get an ice cream from them however, then cycled back to the lodge for that jar of emergency hot dogs that were in the cupboard.

I got conned into reading five, yes five, chapters of Ruby Redfort to the children at bedtime, seeing as it was “our last night here”. Just as well I’m enjoying the story as much as they are.

No time for Settlers of Catan tonight either. We’ll be home when the next game of that is played.

All packed and ready for the long journey home tomorrow. I put most of the unnecessary bags in the van tonight allowing a quick getaway tomorrow morning - not that I want a quick getaway, but we have to be out by ten in the morning, so we have out work cut out. Must admit I had a few pangs of sadness realising that this holiday is swiftly coming to an end. I’ve really enjoyed this one.

Thing is, after that we have a five hour wait until the ferry leaves. Time for a last bit of sight seeing in Brodick and that will not doubt involve yet more spendage of money. Och well, it’s our last night here.