by As we climb up to the Eas Mór waterfall in the south of the island of Arran, I pause to read the words carved into a fallen tree across our path: “Move your head to enter sacred and magical lands.” There is much about Arran that is sacred and magical. Growing up in Glasgow, I visited the island several times as a child, played miniature golf at Brodick and spent hours combing beaches for smooth, colorful stones. My husband’s family also used to decamp from London for long summer holidays: stories of three-year-olds climbing Goatfell – the island’s highest peak at 874 meters are the stuff of family lore.
We now have two children – Henry, eight, and Isabel, five – and we brought them back to this beautiful island in the Clyde Pool in May half term. Arrann is often called “Scotland in miniature”, but that is especially true and relevant for families. You can be there in about two hours from Glasgow, and the island’s main road is a continuous 55-mile loop around its coast, taking in wild beaches, foggy castles, whiskey distilleries and looming granite mountains.
Eas Mór is the ideal family walk to ease little legs: steep enough through the wooded valley to feel lively, but short enough to beat the start of the call, with the Falls Forest Cafe at the end for treats of homemade cake .
The waterfall is dramatic, a long plume that plunges into a valley, but the real magic was created by Albert Holmes of the Eas Mor Ecology project, who creates intricate wooden artworks including kelp and fairies hidden amongst vines and wild. , throne-like benches.
In one clearing, there is a log cabin with a turf roof now known as The Library, where we see Albert refilling the stacks of paper and coloring pencils inside. On every inch of the walls and ceiling, visitors have pinned their drawings and words: sketches of the view out to the domed island of Ailsa Craig alongside poems for peace.
After that, we go to the beach below in Kildonan, in search of more secrets. Árann is in the process of becoming a Unesco world geopark: the Highland fault line cuts through the center of the island, and in 1787 a spot near Lochranza in the north was the site of one of geologist James Hutton’s first “unconformities”, which created the huge. age of the world.
Here in Kildonn, hidden in the rocks, there are footprints left by a giant reptile around 240m years ago. We study the outline of the shore at low tide, breeding geese with our walking boots until we stumble upon it, the distinctive five toes among the other trees in the rock (the creature’s name is cirotherium, which means “hand beast”).
The next day we take a trip on the Lady May from the pier at Lamlais, slipping past the boarder families near the shore to cruise around the harbor and sail alongside Holy Isle. “Look, that magnet is about to have its lunch,” says Lamlash Cruises guide Tim Harvey, pointing to the diving bird as Henry and Isobel take turns with a pair of giant binoculars. “They can hit the water up to 60 miles an hour.”
Ailsa Craig is home to a hermit colony, he tells us, as we catch glimpses of the mighty rock in the distance, and the ultra-dense granite of the uninhabited island is still being quarried (outside of seabird breeding season) for most curling make the world. stones.
Arran is not short of significant stones. Last year a complete Neolithic cursor (ceremonial enclosure) was discovered about 1,100 meters across at Drumdown in the south-west. We are staying nearby in an old farmhouse. From our front door it is a short walk through fields of bleating lambs to the stone circles at Moinear Machair. There are the remains of six circles, thought to have been erected around 2000 BC, and all sorts of mythical stories to tell the children – that Fingal used the stone with a hole in it to tie his dogs while he ate. ; that once upon a time fairies sat at the top of Durra-na-gach, kicking pebbles down the moor which had grown into the stones – as they swirled around in the faint mist beneath megaliths that stood up to five meters high.
A hike up and over the saddle at Glen Sannox has transformed my kids from urban kids to mountain goats. They go on as the track passes through a blanket of ferns and then – as I cling to the fear when the wind blows in its gusts – the pair of them make the rocky bits, laughing. At the top we huddle behind boulders, munching on crisps, recuperating before the long gentle walk down through Glen Rosa. In this deep, green valley carved by a glacier hundreds of meters thick, they jump over huge stepping stones in the stream and avoid fat bulbs of fur on the path.
We walked up to eight thousand’s worth of appetites, but not far from that to the seaside village of Corrie, where the picnic benches outside Mara Fish Bar & Deli are packed: walkers and other hungry holidaymakers tucking into spicy flounder tacos and hand-dipped scallops (pipes from £9.50). Afterwards, we stop at Cladach Beach House, a beach bar on the edge of Brodick, where my husband and I order a raspberry Tom Collins made with Arran gin (cocktails from £7.50) while the kids slurp apple juice and playing football on the sand with new friends. Just a little further down the road, the French Fox serves croque-monsieurs and poulet Breton (with cream and cider) from his vintage turquoise Peugeot van. The Brodick beach front Parlour does sourdough pizza and Arran Dairy ice cream.
By our last morning the sun is feeling braver and we buy supplies for a beach picnic from Blackwater Bakehouse, on a small lane behind the Kinloch Hotel. As Henry swithers over plump pain au chocolat or a glorious sticky cinnamon knot from the “breadshed” honesty, I talk to the owner George Grassie, who used to live a few roads from where we do now in south London. He grew up in Arran and moved back so that his children could have the kind of free-range childhood he enjoyed on the island. Down on the wide sandy beach of the Black River, I can see his point. A group of young riders on horseback ride around the shore (nearby Cairnhouse Stables organizes pony rides) and my kids run in and out of the little waves, giddy and shouting. They strip down to their pants and jump off rocks into the cold water, search shallow pools for small animals and skip stones across the sea. Holy and magical indeed.
CalMac sends to Arran from Ardrossan (55 minutes) and Troon (1 hour 20 minutes) from £9.20 return as a foot passenger; trains from Glasgow Central connect with the ferry times. The writer and her family stayed at Balnagore Farm near Machrie (from £650 a week, sleeps 11)
