Return to the mainland

It was an early start for us this morning as we left the Lochranza campsite and made our way down the east coast to catch the ferry at Brodick.

Lochranza had been quite successful although we did question the management of it slightly. We would certainly use it again however.

When we arrived at Brodick we were surprised to see the ferry sailing in the opposite direction just an hour before our departure. Apparently they have two ferries operating at this time of the year and we joined one of the customary lanes to await our boat. It wasn’t long before she appeared – The Caledonian Isles, which still looked smart despite being built in the early 1990s.

She is a large boat, able to take 1000 foot passengers and over 100 vehicles.

A seemingly never-ending line of foot passengers made their way off and then the vehicles. It wasn’t long before we were heading down the slipway to take our place inside.

We went straight to the café and ordered two bacon butties and delicious they were too!

The island slipped away into the distance…

… and Peter kept a look-out for any interesting birds. We saw a few Common Guillemots as usual and a Diver – probably a Great Northern.

Also this creature – is it a seal?

It seemed as though we had no sooner had we finished our bacon rolls that we were getting the message to go back to our vehicles. We had arrived at Ardrossan on the mainland.

Our goal was the Camping & Caravanning Club’s campsite at Barnard Castle in Teeside, Co. Durham, which we reached in about four hours. The journey took us through Maucline, famous for its souvenir tartan wares and being one of the places where Rabbie Burns lived with his wife. There is a memorial tower there.

Typical C&CC site – well laid out with spacious pitches and good facilities. Mostly caravans, which seemed strange to us as we had seen mostly motorhomes for the last couple of months. We decided to have fish and chips from the local mobile shop which visited the site on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Poor old Pete had to queue for over an hour! They were really hot and very tasty when we eventually got them thank goodness.