Blogging at 21:30 on Tuesday 31st December from intended overnighting spot N 55.55548°, W 05.29827° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:55.55548%2C-05.29827
The impromptu camp we dived into last night worked surprisingly well. It proved peaceful and unmolested: apart from the wind and rain, that is. Hideous storms apparently absolutely battered the whole of Western Scotland overnight and, today, nearly all of CalMac's ferry services have been either severely curtailed or fully cancelled as a result.
Our experience of the fallout has been a mixed bag. We were still able to sail from the Kintyre peninsula to Arran, albeit on a much smaller boat than the one that usually operates (pic). In spite of the weather, the pelagic birdlife on the crossing was the best we've seen so far. Huge numbers and many and varied species made light work of the wind and rain and we added fulmar, guillemot and kittiwake to our trip-species list.
Once on Arran the bird-trend continued and within an hour of arriving we'd further added ringed plover, raven and white-tailed eagle. Within two hours of arriving, we'd even made the best of a brief weather window and managed a pleasant coast-road run. All in, then, a productive and enjoyable morning; unexpectedly salvaged from the generally stormy weather.
By lunchtime we hit the skids with the news that our early-evening boat back off Arran - along with every other boat off Arran - had been pulled. Suffice to say any hope of tomorrow's parkrun was then-and-there dashed and - following a very long wait in CalMac's customer services telephone queue - we're now stuck on Arran until at least the 2nd January.
This may be no bad thing, though. From what we've seen of the island so far it's extremely pretty and appears to be very well cared far. The infrastructure seems well maintained and the civic pride obvious (take note, Islay).
Post lunch / CalMac interaction we did a bit of a casual sea watching and then headed inland to look for a kipping spot. There are more than a few flimsies, some crashingly obvious stealth vans (aren't they all?), and lots of T5/6 types around; so we decided we'd definitely be avoiding the more obvious potential overnight spots.
A New Year's Eve forest track it is, then (coordinates). From here we've had a walk out and also spent some time with the thermal-imaging camera. The walk resulted in a quite bizarre sighting: a white coloured red deer. The animal was with another (red) red deer and although a long way off we were happy with the species ID. More research required on this one!
The thermal-imaging camera revealed a few roosting birds and about half a dozen chunky little rodents that we're assuming at this point were bank or field voles.
For clarity: we haven't set our alarm for midnight, and we won't be setting off any fireworks.
Sent from my mobile device