RUDE AWAKENINGS

It’s five in the morning. I’ve just been outside, having been lying awake for sometime listening to the raucous bellowing of a stag outside the caravan window. You’ve heard of swimming with dolphins- well, at this time of year, here you get to camp with stags roaring close by. Just bring ear plugs if you want some sleep. Outside, the sky is black and peppered with billions of twinkling silver and gold stars. The solid outlines of Torr Nead and Meall Mor edge the sky. Winds are whooshing about in Glen Chalmadale and Gleannn Easan but it’s calm down here and I can distinguish many stag voices calling round the village in answer to the one who’s woken me up. A few motorhomes are staying on site and I can’t see any lights on so I’m hoping everyone else is still fast asleep.

It’s coming to the end of our first season now. We close on October 31^st until March 1^st. Anyone holidaying in Arran now truly sees the tourist season end in a blaze of autumn glory. Visitors come back daily with reports of something special, including today “We saw the northern lights from the pier last night” and “We saw a basking shark passing Pirnmill….”. I myself saw a little colony of common seals basking on the rocks at Newton shore and red squirrels scurrying about all over the place. But it’s the daily soap opera of the deer that dominates our lives: the chases, challenges, tussles and, of course, the desperate groanings and defiant bellowings.