Here Come The Waterworks

I'm just back from possibly the biggest failure of a holiday ever! My friend Sara and I decided it'd be good fun to get away from things for a couple of days and head to the Isle of Arran, just off the west coast of Scotland. Arran's great, because it's so easy to reach from Glasgow by public transport - a train from Glasgow Central station to Ardrossan Harbour (about 40mins), then jump straight on the MV Caledonian Isles, the CalMac Ferry between Ardrossan and Brodick, the main town on the island.

Being poor and all, we decided it'd be a good plan to go camping. I had a tent and knew of a great wee camp spot at a place called Glen Rosa, about a mile's walk to the north of Brodick. I'd been to Glen Rosa the two summers previous to this trip, and it had proven to be a perfect base for getting around the island, in a quiet-yet-convenient-enough setting.

After arriving, we got our tent pitched up in a fairly nice spot by the Rosa Burn, the river running adjacent to the campsite. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great, so we decided just to sit in the tent and wait until the weather passed over. Unfortunately though, the weather didn't pass over for a while, and in fact, the heavy rain had caused the river to swell up. Luckily, another group of campers had been paying close attention to the river levels and had alerted us just in time to pack up all of our things and shift the tent to higher ground before the deluge came forth and swept us down to the Firth of Clyde!

We managed to get our gear to safety, and I managed to grab a few snaps of the last remaining tents getting dragged through the rising floods. Unfortunately however, in the rush to get everything moved, most of what we were carrying ended up getting pretty well soaked. While I had made what I thought to be a safe shout relying on one pair of waterproof hiking boots to last me the trip, I hadn't bargained on having to wade through a couple of feet of flood water, so I'd have had to traipse around in soggy boots for the remainder of the time.

We stayed the night at the campsite, but decided on hearing rain on the tent the next morning, that we'd just abandon the trip and head home early. Some bacon rolls at the Bilslands cafe soon lifted our spirits though, and we even got a top notch celebrity-spot in the form of former Deacon Blue drummer turned TV presenter Dougie Vipond. Obviously, Bilslands Cafe is the place to be seen for top celebrities when holidaying in Brodick. Of course, true to form, the minute we got on the boat, the skies miraculously cleared, making the rest of my journey home all nice and sunny. Damn.