Premium bivvy spot in Arran

[Joshvegas]

I have landed on Arran for the next three days to watch some men in hivis dig 'oles, thursday night is earmarked as bivvy night I have hiking and riding gear and bivvy& tarp.

Any recommendations?

[petemaz]

Arran's my local haunt, so I know it well. Where will you be based and how long have you got? The not so good news is that Arran is one giant sponge and it's not easy finding a dryish, flat bit for wild camping unless you go high or stay close to the coastline. I have a favourite spot at co-ordinates NS033275, which is along a forestry road between Lamlash and Whiting Bay - you'll come to an open area in the forest and on the sea-side you'll see a raised grassy area with a picnic table and enough room for a couple of bivvys/tents. This is a decent enough spot if you're concentrating on the trails between Brodick and the south/east side of the island, however if you plan to go around Arran mainly on the roads, then you're best looking at spots around the coastline of which there are plenty. I've also pitched the tent half way up Goatfell before - it's a great trail for coming back down the mountain - just watch out for hill walkers (of which there will be plenty at this time of year)

There used to be a load of routes on this site: http://www.arranbikeclub.com/routes but it appears they've taken all but one down for some reason.

[Pyro]

I've had a couple of good nights up Glen Catacol (near the junction of Glen Catacol and Glen Diomhan), and also by the trig pillar/old fort out on the Clauchlands. The little loop of singletrack over there is quite nice as well, through the open section on here

There's some decent flat pitches around the coast from Lochranza towards Ossian's Cave as well.

[Mike]

I can vouch for petemaz when he says there's a good spot up top. I found this exact spot in April n had a night on the raised grassy area just above the bench its grand!! And if u go back onto the track and turn left as if heading south of the island there is a clear water flow about 50yards down fire road which u can get down to on the left hand side. The decent from the giant graves is a great one and the cafe on the front in whiting bay is great also

[petemaz]

well yetiman, up until recently i thought i was the only one in the world to know about that spot!!

when i was last there a couple of weeks ago, i'd been on the bike for about 4 hours in some pretty torrential rain and was soaked to the skin...my only thoughts were to reach 'my spot' and get a brew on... so, low and behold, when i finally get there some other bloke had already beaten me to it! it turned out to be a friendly young German lad who was bikepacking across Scotland all summer, and he was nice enough to help me put my tent up and also offered me some rather nice German chocolate..! That's his tent across from mine - some kind of tent/tarpy thing, not sure what brand.

arran.jpg

(66.79 KiB) Downloaded 712 times

[Mike]

That's the spot looks grim then though

[Joshvegas]

Cheets foolks headed for the picnic bench between lamlash and whiting bay, didnt have much time for riding which was a shame.

Lessons learnt.... Pack your midge net!

Fortunately I had been up glen sannox and grabbed some handfuls of bog myrtle so i escaped fairly bite free on my head and arms.