Saturday 15 August 2015

Great Goat Fell Fun

Today we met for breakfast between 8 and 9 this morning. We experimented with different sandwich fillers in preparation for our packed lunch on the mountain and stuffed ourselves with breakfast. We headed to the beach for 10:00 and appreciated the local wildlife- from Herring Gulls, Oyster Catchers and Red Throated Divers we made a note of the numbers of different species and their locations.
Once we had seen most of the wildlife on the beach, we played a game called Owls and Voles; we were told statements about Arran and if true the Owls chased the voles, if false, the voles chased the owls! This prepared us physically for our 6 hour hike up Goat Fell.


We took the 11:00 bus to High Corrie where we began our hike- acknowledging a (dead) slow worm at the beginning. We took a steep track through a lush green forest until we met the path that took us up the mountain. We were shown variations of plants, trees and flowers and the history of trees such as the Rowan Tree; growing bright red berries once used to make jelly and full of fibre. We climbed the rocky terrain up to a large stream where we had lunch and took some awesome photos of the view!

We continued our ascent to Goat Fell; the climb was steep to begin with but levelled out before we reached the summit- this was very deceiving. Ash claimed he saw red deer at the base of a hill but we couldn't distinguish them until we used binoculars on our descent. We finally reached the summit of Goat Fell where we took more awe inspiring photos of the fabulous view; trying to ignore the harsh, freezing winds. The descent was more pleasant and as a group we led the way, all involved in deep conversations about future plans such as university.


Finally, we made it back to Shore Lodge where we played The Logo Game and The Best of TV and Movies Game, rapidly demolishing the copious amounts of biscuits to re-gain our energy. Dinner was cooked by Meg, Ash and Oliver which was a delicious chilli and nachos- this went down very well. After a long day including 6 hours of hardcore walking, we were happy to crash on the sofa/ in bed, looking forward to tomorrow's installment.




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