Arran (18th-20th July 2025)

Filed Under: Cycling

Last weekend Kara and I took our bicycles and our tent to Arran for a long weekend of bikepacking on the Isle of Arran. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Scotland, Arran is this one:

It’s one of the easiest of the West Coast islands to reach from Edinburgh without a car. We left my flat at about 9:15 on Friday morning, stopping at Alpkit for some last-minute supplies en route to Waverley, where we caught the train to Glasgow Central at 10am. We changed at Central, boarding the train to Ayr which we alighted from at Troon at about 12:30pm. The ferry terminal is a 10 minute ride from Troon station¹, and goes back and forth every few hours (when CalMac aren’t messing about with the schedules, and the weather is being kind). After a brief panic about a horrible grinding noise Kara’s cranks were making, which she managed to fix herself, we boarded the ferry with our bikes after all the automobiles had embarked, and left our bikes in the hold². We were in Brodick by about 2:30pm.

Day 1

We didn’t have any particular plans for our time on the isle, but Kara, having visited before, had a few places she knew she wanted to revisit and ideas of where we could camp and what routes we could follow. Arran doesn’t have a lot of roads. It has a coastal ring road that follows the coastline in all but a few places, such as the northernmost tip. Then it has a road called the Ross that cuts through the interior from Lamlash to the southwest. Then it has a road through its middle named the String. Almost every other road has a dead end.

We began our adventure with a steep climb up the String and a lovely descent down the other side:

This took us to Café Thyme where we stopped for some tea and vegan chocolate cake³.

Then we travelled up the coast for dinner at the Lighthouse restaurant in Pirnmill. I had venison and Kara had some slow-cooked lamb 🤤 ⁴

EDIT: While we were there an entire pod of dolphins swam past, heading North. The setting sun reflected on the waves and on their backs, and occasionally one would do a big jump! Truly a far more memorable sight than my initially forgetting to mention it here suggests!

Then we cycled back down the coast to a spot we’d seen on the way up, and pitched our tent between some cliffs and a rocky shore:

Kara immediately made a driftwood campfire:

I slept okay. I’m getting better at camping.

Day 2

In the morning the first thing we had to do was climb this hill and head back north up the coast.

Just at the top of this road there is a farm with peacocks!

We refilled our water containers at the Post Office in Pirnmill before continuing on to Lochranza.

We got big sandwiches from the Sandwich Station, chatted briefly to an older couple visiting from Birmingham, and inspected the castle.

Then we got a couple of whiskies to drink at the distillery.

Refreshed, we made the brutal climb up the hill road from Lochranza to Sannox. We made a piss stop at the Corrie & Sannox Village Hall, where a couple of musicians were warming up for an evening performance, there was a wee bookshop, and Kara saw her first red squirrel. I was so excited to point it out to her that I did a big gasp and frightened it off, but she stuck around and saw it re-emerge. Then we continued on to Brodick, where we got some supplies from the Co-Op and decided what to do about dinner and the night’s camping.

We set our sights on Arran Simply Thai in Whiting Bay. This leg of the day’s journey took us through Lamlash, past the ominous Holy Isle. There was lots of up and down and we were grateful to arrive in Whiting Bay. We were early for our reservation, so we took a dip in the sea and attempted to clean ourselves up a bit. The water was cold but really not that bad. I think I could have stayed in longer. Dinner at the Thai restaurant was delicious and refilling.

Then we had a tense evening ride, racing the setting sun westwards along the southern coast of the isle. Kara became increasingly nervous, not quite sure exactly where we’d camp. In our doubt we took a detour down the steep descent into Kildonan, where the formal campsite was full and there was little ground for wild camping, meaning we had to climb back up the hill at the other end of the town to get back onto the main road. I think the detour was worthwhile anyway – the view of Pladda Lighthouse and the village before it was spectacular in the evening light. We continued with farm fields on either side of the road, Kara stopping occasionally to ponder whether we should just stop and pitch our tent in one of them, but we forged onwards to Kilmory and Lagg, where at long last we found our ultimate destination. Kara had hoped to bring us to it, but just wasn’t sure exactly where it was or whether we would make it before dark. Making our way down a forest path from the village hall, with the sun disappearing below the hillside on our right, we pitched our tent by the mouth of the river. Kara made another fire in an attempt to keep the midges at bay while enjoying the sunset. I found I was completely exhausted and sank into my sleeping bag.

I was far too warm that night and woke up all sweaty and had to switch to using my sleeping bag as a quilt. Apart from that, I rested okay.

Day 3

Day 3 was clearer than the previous two and it got hot fast. Lagg Distillery is closed on Sundays, otherwise we would have visited. We made our way up the west coast, stopping in Blackwaterfoot for some food from the village shop. After inhaling some herring and some potato scones, we kept going to revisit Café Thyme for another round of chocolate cake.

I stopped to photograph a neat phenomenon. Ailsa Craig, almost invisible in the haze of the horizon, made visible in negative by its white cap of cloud:

We needed the cake to fuel us for the final leg: a return to Brodick via the String, featuring a very long climb.

We arrived in plenty time for our ferry back to Troon, where there was a veritable crowd of other cyclists waiting to board with us. We were back home around 8pm. We could have been home sooner, but we foolishly boarded the slow train from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Oh well.

We both really enjoyed our time on Arran. Everyone was lovely apart from the occasional dangerous drivers we encountered on the road. We only had a little rain, and the heat and humidity only got a bit too much on the final day.

Hopefully we’ll get at least one more bike trip done this season.

My right knee, which has been the bane of previous cycling trips, held up the whole time. I’m not sure what I did differently though. Is it too much to hope that the joint has simply gotten better? Yes, probably – it has been a little achey this week.