Lochranza Arran.
Created | Updated Apr 16, 2007
Lochranza, Arran!
If you ever find yourself fortunate enough to go to the glorious Isle of Arran, than the one village that you MUST MUST MUST, go to is the picturesque village of Lochranza at the Northern tip of the island.
This place has everything that you could hope for from a small Scottish village. It has mountain views; you can look over the bay, at seals and the occasional dolphin as they swim past.
I would wax lyrical about the scenery, but as I was always terrible at poetry at school, I won’t bother, least to say, that it really is incredibly great (need I say anything more about the poetry skills). The hills look even more impressive and superb, once you have climbed to the top of one, and you can look back at it with a self satisfied feeling of accomplishment, (even if you were overtaken on the way up, by a family with two five year old kids in tow).
The village contains a field centre, a youth hostel and a hotel, to stay in. there is also a small village shop/post office, for any day-to-day shopping items. There is also the islands distillery, down the road, which contains a small visitors centre and souvenir shop.
The hotel, is also the local pub, which serves pretty nice food, and although some of the beer it serves may taste a bit “travelled”, if you chose carefully, you can have a good pint or two there.
You can also find small craft shops, and a butcher. There’s a small public golf cause, if you’re in to that kind of thing. So there are a few simple activates that could keep you busy, if you ever tired of the scenery.
There are plenty of walks around the surrounding area to be had, such as the “Cock of Arran” walk. Not to mention, that slightly further around the coastline, there is to be found, the giant centipede trail, as well as a dinosaur footprint, although it does have to be said that a great deal of perseverance is required in order to find either of these paleological points of interest. For further information about the best walks, to make the most of the scenery, than just pop into wither the field centre or the youth hostel, and someone there will be more than happy to give out useful information and tips on the area.
There is a great deal of wildlife in the area, as I have mentioned, there are plenty of seals, the odd dolphin, quite a lot of deer, a few adders, hundreds of sheep (alright there not wild, but there are so many of them that I could hardly go without giving them a mention), wild ducks in the “loch”, which hasn’t been technically a Lock in millions of years, and is now clearly a bay. The odd falcon, and even an eagle can be spotted at times too.
Crime on the island as a whole is virtually non-existent. There is only one police officer on the island, and the last time anyone actually was murdered on the isle, was in 1889!
Whilst Brodick may be the main town on the island, and have more facilities than any other place on the island by a mile, (the islands only two cash points, and supermarket are located here), Lochranza wins hands down as being the place to go in my opinion.
There are of course negative points about the village, for instance it doesn’t exactly have all the things which you would find in a typical town, there is no cinema or anything like that for instance, and mobile phone reception for certain phones (such as T mobile and Virgin), is very limited, but what really do you expect on a small island. There are also the dreaded midges, which no matter how much fly spray you seem to put on, always appear to find some bare bit of flesh, to bite. They don’t really hurt, but are incredibly annoying little s*ds. The Horse flies on the other hand (although less numerous), do hurt slightly when they tuck into you, and can leave rather large red bite marks. I ought to give a minor warning about the sheep ticks as well, they are really harmless, and will only really attach themselves to you, if you happen to be lying on the ground for any great length of time, but they are difficult to get off, and need to be either burned out or extracted with the aid of methalated spirits. I remember one rather plump mouthy girl form Middlesbrough, who was doing a Duke of Edinburgh award, walking around the island, had to sleep in a tent in a field for about a week, got covered in midges, and when wearing a rather ill advised small top, you could see a band of red bite marks all around her waist, which as you can imagine was very fetching.
I should point out that I am not an agent for the tourist board in Lochranza, but I am proud to be (according to the two people who run the youth hostel- the Church’s), one of only two Geologist students to have gone to the island more than once (the other geologist was a bloke called Matt Kennet, who I have now gone to the island for my dissertation work a total of three times)! Not exactly the greatest claim to fame in the world, but it’s slightly better than nothing.
If you ever find yourself fortunate enough to go to the glorious Isle of Arran, than the one village that you MUST MUST MUST, go to is the picturesque village of Lochranza at the Northern tip of the island.
This place has everything that you could hope for from a small Scottish village. It has mountain views; you can look over the bay, at seals and the occasional dolphin as they swim past.
I would wax lyrical about the scenery, but as I was always terrible at poetry at school, I won’t bother, least to say, that it really is incredibly great (need I say anything more about the poetry skills). The hills look even more impressive and superb, once you have climbed to the top of one, and you can look back at it with a self satisfied feeling of accomplishment, (even if you were overtaken on the way up, by a family with two five year old kids in tow).
The village contains a field centre, a youth hostel and a hotel, to stay in. there is also a small village shop/post office, for any day-to-day shopping items. There is also the islands distillery, down the road, which contains a small visitors centre and souvenir shop.
The hotel, is also the local pub, which serves pretty nice food, and although some of the beer it serves may taste a bit “travelled”, if you chose carefully, you can have a good pint or two there.
You can also find small craft shops, and a butcher. There’s a small public golf cause, if you’re in to that kind of thing. So there are a few simple activates that could keep you busy, if you ever tired of the scenery.
There are plenty of walks around the surrounding area to be had, such as the “Cock of Arran” walk. Not to mention, that slightly further around the coastline, there is to be found, the giant centipede trail, as well as a dinosaur footprint, although it does have to be said that a great deal of perseverance is required in order to find either of these paleological points of interest. For further information about the best walks, to make the most of the scenery, than just pop into wither the field centre or the youth hostel, and someone there will be more than happy to give out useful information and tips on the area.
There is a great deal of wildlife in the area, as I have mentioned, there are plenty of seals, the odd dolphin, quite a lot of deer, a few adders, hundreds of sheep (alright there not wild, but there are so many of them that I could hardly go without giving them a mention), wild ducks in the “loch”, which hasn’t been technically a Lock in millions of years, and is now clearly a bay. The odd falcon, and even an eagle can be spotted at times too.
Crime on the island as a whole is virtually non-existent. There is only one police officer on the island, and the last time anyone actually was murdered on the isle, was in 1889!
Whilst Brodick may be the main town on the island, and have more facilities than any other place on the island by a mile, (the islands only two cash points, and supermarket are located here), Lochranza wins hands down as being the place to go in my opinion.
There are of course negative points about the village, for instance it doesn’t exactly have all the things which you would find in a typical town, there is no cinema or anything like that for instance, and mobile phone reception for certain phones (such as T mobile and Virgin), is very limited, but what really do you expect on a small island. There are also the dreaded midges, which no matter how much fly spray you seem to put on, always appear to find some bare bit of flesh, to bite. They don’t really hurt, but are incredibly annoying little s*ds. The Horse flies on the other hand (although less numerous), do hurt slightly when they tuck into you, and can leave rather large red bite marks. I ought to give a minor warning about the sheep ticks as well, they are really harmless, and will only really attach themselves to you, if you happen to be lying on the ground for any great length of time, but they are difficult to get off, and need to be either burned out or extracted with the aid of methalated spirits. I remember one rather plump mouthy girl form Middlesbrough, who was doing a Duke of Edinburgh award, walking around the island, had to sleep in a tent in a field for about a week, got covered in midges, and when wearing a rather ill advised small top, you could see a band of red bite marks all around her waist, which as you can imagine was very fetching.
I should point out that I am not an agent for the tourist board in Lochranza, but I am proud to be (according to the two people who run the youth hostel- the Church’s), one of only two Geologist students to have gone to the island more than once (the other geologist was a bloke called Matt Kennet, who I have now gone to the island for my dissertation work a total of three times)! Not exactly the greatest claim to fame in the world, but it’s slightly better than nothing.
