A place to play and pray.

Where to begin?  Its been an amazing few days here at Shore Lodge, with so much hard work and creativity from the team. The most appropriate place to start might be the end, as we have been enjoying an evening of exploring the life and work of John Muir. Luke, one of our participants put his thoughts into a poem, which he has agreed we can share with you.

The Celestial City- Luke Randhawa

When the mountains called he went, 

In search of a place to play and pray, 

And when the temple opened its doors, his pilgrimage began, 

And he never looked back. 

It was an empire of granite, 

A flurry of trees, 

Great wide valleys, 

Home to the birds and the bees. 

And with only his quill and an open mind, 

He carved from this wilderness a home for anyone to find, 

Still to this day he stands on Pacheco Pass, 

Looking over the disciples who wander in search, 

Of Yosemite- a place they call their church. 

Looking back, there has been a tremendous amount of work.  Yesterday we joined Jackie from the National Trust for Scotland for a day of clearing invasive Rhododendrons from Brodick Country Park.  This invasive plant is a bully that threatens the diverse, nature-friendly woodland around the park, and spreads readily out into the wider habitat of Arran. It was hard work, but there was time for some relaxing around the bonfire at the end, and marshmallows, of course. 

Today we headed to the beach at Kildonan.  This was the perfect opportunity to spot some wildlife, including seals, seabirds and a dog otter hunting in the shallows. After lunch, the team took on a Marine Litter Survey and beach clean, recording the plastic and other items they collected from the beach.  In all, 17kg of rubbish were recovered, including dozens of cotton buds, rope, and a balloon. 

Sunshine on Goatfell

Wow, residential 2 is in full swing and we have been blessed with some sunshine!  We took advantage of the good forecast yesterday and headed up Goatfell with the hopes of getting a view. It was hot and muggy on the way up, but thankfully not too midgey, so we were able to spend a bit of time exploring the flora and fauna of the mountain environment. One highlight was seeing a couple of  big fat juvenile cuckoos being fed by their diminutive adopted parents- little meadow pipits, working hard to feed their greedy charges. 

The team did well to get to the top in good time, and beat the encroaching clouds to get a misty view from the top. All in all a great day out on the hill. 

Conservation time

Our team members get involved in a range of different activities, discovering, and exploring Arran. We also do a fair amount of conservation work, and this week has been no exception.
Yesterday the team met Jeremy from the NTS in Glen Rosa, where he furnished us with some fairly mean looking tools, and we headed on to the hillside to an area where the NTS has been planting native trees.  The trees have been planted amongst dense bracken, which is both a blessing and a curse.  The bracken favours terrain with the deep soils and nutrients needed by the trees, it's often an indicator for areas where there used to be woodland, but bracken also shades out the young trees, competes for nutrients, and can smother them when it dies back. Therefore, our conservation volunteers have been working in this area for many years now, helping to control and beat back the bracken and encourage the young trees to shoot up.  There are real and tangible changes happening each year that we go back, and it is starting to look like a mini forest!

Adventure Expeds John Muir Award teams also have the chance to really get to know the flora and fauna of Arran, so we spent some time looking at the plants that are found in Glen Rosa. We love the midgie eaters (carnivorous plants) such as the round-leaved sundew and pale butterwort below. 

Pale Butterwort

Round-leaved sundew

Today we headed out of the mountains and to the coast, to meet Jenny Stark from the Community of Arran Seabed Trust for a beach clean and marine litter survey in Lamlash. Adventure Expeds teams have been cleaning this beach for a number of years. We find a range of fishing waste, and domestic refuse washes up here, including sewage-related debris. The coast here is also an important area for special breeding birds such as eider ducks and we are happy to do our bit to try and clean it up for them.

Misty Goatfell

Welcome to Adventure Expeditions Arran residentials 2019! We have three teams coming up to the island over the next three weeks and an action-packed programme as they work towards their John Muir Awards. Our first team is already here and have been keeping busy exploring Arran and finding out about the local environment. Today we all headed up Goatfell, in the mist and a few midges, which sounds tough but as the weather forecast was for rain, we were pretty happy to be dry.
Here's a photo of everyone on the top. Note inquisitive Herring Gull waiting patiently for someone to drop a sandwich...

Beach Finale

Lucy here. The youth have headed home, and the dust has settled at Shore Lodge once more, but they didn't leave before one final hurrah on the beach, a competitive map making exercise where they expressed their feelings about their adventures and shared the things that they had learned on Arran. Obviously everyone is a winner, so Rob and I came up with categories to suit each map ☺....

Massive thanks to the group for a phenomenal amount of hard work.  It was an absolute pleasure and honour to be part of their adventure while they "discovered, explored, conserved and shared" Arran- the four pillars of the John Muir Award.

An absolutely rubbish day.

Today we had an early start as we needed to beat the tide for a beach clean along a short section of nearby beach. We left the lodge, headed to the bus stop, and, upon arriving earlier than planned, played a game of Splat! whilst we waited.

When we got to Lamlash, we headed to the COAST (Community Of Arran Seabed Trust) centre, where we carried out an in-depth risk assessment and learnt about the history of COAST. After collecting our equipment for the clean, we walked a couple of kilometres along the beach, before turning back to begin picking up things. It was interesting seeing the range of things that washed up along the shore, as well as a variety of wildlife which we may have missed if we weren't looking as closely. Some of the more interesting finds were a grain sack from holland; a bottle plug from glasgow; and a message in a bottle. Amongst the wildlife we encountered was several sites of an otter's dinner (in the form of a smashed crab); two swans and their cygnets; and a gannet's skull.

Upon returning to the centre, we disposed of the collected rubbish and got ourselves a 'shellebratory' ice cream. We then headed back to Brodick where we had a little wander through the town; decided against a game of crazy golf; and had a thrilling tour round Co-op.

When we got back to the lodge, some chilled; some made brownies; and some tested the cleanliness of the carpet. We also finished off our floral research and presented it to the others. Who knew that the thistle was the national symbol of Scotland due to someone stepping on it, or that Foxglove means Fairy Bells?

After an experimental dinner of fajitas and brownies, we are going to have another attempt at spotting some badgers in the woods later this evening

Day of three halves

Monday morning started with a lot of rain. The mist sat on the horizon like a cat would on a mat. Today we volunteered with the National Trust of Scotland to do some conservation work in Glen Rosa.

At a speedy pace of 4 km/h we approached Glen Rosa. There we met a woman called Kate, who proceeded to ask us to act out an animal with the first letter of our name. We were then given bamboo sticks to beat back the bracken that was growing around the sprouting trees. This was to prevent the bracken from using up all the nutrients in the soil, and blocking the sunlight. At this time of the day it was dreicht and there was a lot of midges, though thankfully most of us were armed with midge nets.

Next on our to-do list was clear the path of heather. While we were walking to this path, after getting the loppers from our new friend Kate, we encountered some youths enjoying the Scottish weather. One of the group had become slightly colder than what is healthy. Our amazing instructor, Lucy, raced into action and pulled an emergency shelter out of her rucksack for the teenager to warm up in. With the help of Irn Bru, Jelly Babies and Mountain Rescue the girl made a quick recovery. We were on our way again.

We were each tasked with finding a flower to discover, identify and research. Later in the week, along with some illustrations, our findings will be presented to the rest of the group as part of our John Muir award.

As we approached the exclosure the sun graced us with its presence. The task here was to use the loppers and reduce footpath erosion by cutting back the heather and grass. This task seemed simple to begin with, yet with close encounters with flowing water and narrow path, it became difficult to get rid of all the hanging vegetation. After around some hard work, we called it a day.

On our return, we sighted two of Scotland's big five: the golden eagle and red deer. We returned to the bunkhouse slightly sore but satisfied with the outcome.