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A brief 2-day break in Arran to stay with my parents, my sister and her three kids. On the Tuesday, we got unexpectedly good weather, with the island looking spectacular from the Ardrossan ferry.
We were staying in a beautifully situated cottage just at the western end of Kildonan, and my niece Emily - being an outdoorsy sort of girl - fancied going a walk
. I just wish any of my own kids had been similarly enthusiastic at her age
. My sister had done the wee Loch Garbad walk before, and enjoyed it, so that seemed like a good choice.
We started at sea level, on Kildonan Beach just outside the cottage, but despite the steep walk up the minor Kildonan road to meet the A841, Emily was pressing on ahead, and somewhat putting my sister and myself to shame as we struggled to keep up. It didn't take us long to get to the junction with the A841, where the track to the Eas Mor waterfall and Loch Garbad starts just on the opposite side of the main road.
Once past the car park, this quickly becomes a very pretty forest walk on an excellent path:
A bit further up the path and the Eas Mor waterfall comes into view. This proves to be unexpectedly impressive for the relatively flat south half of Arran, a definite rival to the better known Glenashdale Falls near Whiting Bay. As described by the website's route summary, there are several different viewpoints along the path.
There were equally good views back the way, with the wee islands of Pladda and Ailsa Craig very prominent out to sea to the south.
The last of the viewpoints, which is nearest to the waterfall, is probably the most impressive one.
From here on up to the loch, the path gets a bit rougher with some swampy bits, although tree branches have helpfully been laid across the worst of these. Emily was having a rare time foraging about in the pine forest for unusual fungi, particulalry fine examples of lichen, owl pellets and the like
. This is her showing off some strange trailing mossy stuff she found on the lower branches of a pine tree:
It wasn't much farther to the loch itself, another very scenic spot, especially in today's sunshine. We had a chat with one of the two fishermen, who had managed to land some nice brown trout.
Then it was just a leisurely stroll back home to Kildonan, taking the recommended detour on the way to the free library hut, which is definitely child-friendly: Emily was impressed. Another bonus of this wee detour was a fallen log that provided some useful tightrope-walking practice:
We were back at the house within two hours. I'd definitely recommend this as a grand shorter walk in the southern half of the island - if starting from the car park just off the A841 at the Kildonan road junction, I would think that this walk would be manageable even for very young children, and there's certainly plenty to keep older children interested.
