Isle of Arran

After a great day in Glasgow, and with a marvellous hotel to call home for 4 days, I set off to the Isle of Arran with Tom the guide. We had a full bus with an interesting mix of people, two of whom,Gabriella and Anita from Hungary, I made friends with and ended up having dinner together. Really nice. 

The Island of Arran was home to the Vikings many centuries ago, and is an island of two halves - the mountains and glens, with Goat Fell it's highest peak 874 m.. the other half of the island is flatter and agricultural.
The island is considered to be ' a miniature Scotland '. 
Our main visit was to Brodick Castle and it's incredible gardens. Recently rebuilt in  1844 , the castle dates back centuries, and was owned by the Dukes of Hamilton. I honestly didn't find the castle so fascinating. It was more like a stately home, but the extensive gardens were fabulous.
At times it was like being in NZ! So many NZ trees and ferns. I can't understand why everyone wants our cabbage trees! 
The woodland trails were gorgeous and every now and again there was an unusual sculpture. This stag looked magnificent amongst the ferns.
These plants, which we also have in the Botanical gardens, were up to 3 metres tall 
and the leaves more than a metre across!
The house itself housed the most unbelievable collection of stag antlers. They were killed for sport and food . How sad. Such magnificent creatures.
I always love the kitchen in these homes. I can just imagine how they were when there was a big banquet !
For me the best part of the tour was when we drove through the Glen and made a stop on a hill from which we had the most beautiful, panoramic views. 
I wish we had had longer here.  The colours were so vibrant with heather everywhere amongst the ferns.
We were so lucky with the weather here too.
We were actually heading to Lochranza distillery . I must admit that the scenery around it appealed to me more than the whisky!
This is a new tour, so I will feed back the need for more stops to see the landscape.
Sadly, there was a ferry problem and ours was cancelled, so we had to race back to port to get an earlier ferry home. At first I was sad about not seeing more of the island, but we actually got the last place on the early ferry, just as the heavens opened . We had to go to Troon instead of Ardrossan, which meant more than an hour on a rather lumpy sea. Luckily, I was chatting to Gabriella and Anita, which helped me get through the trip. 
It had been a good day, but I would like to go back again and explore more of the island. 

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