Putting the gentle into gentleman

Avidly watching the weather, we nipped out at approximately 10.37 to walk into today's weather window.

We were going to head up a ridge and hopefully drop down into Glen Rosa if the gradient allowed but on the way to the parking place, we met a very helpful local man who was also heading towards the glen. He opened the gate for us with a smile and told us where to park. After parking, he caught up with us and we chatted to him about where he was going. He pretty much insisted in a gentle and soft Scottish accent that we meander up Glen Rosa and head up to The Saddle enjoying the dramatic waterfalls on the way. We took his advice and started getting our boots on.

On the way, we caught up with him again and we enjoyed watching a golden eagle with him and 5 geese flying high in the sky. Given he's lived on Arran all his life, we were satisfied with his confirmation that it was indeed an eagle and not a buzzard.

He told us to enjoy walking arm in arm with the mountains - such a wonderful man with I'm sure, many stories to tell. He certainly put the gentle into gentleman.

As yesterday, we had the hills to ourselves. The glen was breathtaking and the full rivers were indeed spectacular.

Rich and I have a little competition when we visit Scotland of earning points for nature spots. Rich has been clearly winning on this trip - up until today when Little Dog took over. Many times today, we were stopping to admire the view and she had her nose in the opposite direction. When we turned to take a look in her direction, three times there were deer standing staring at us!

The weather kept on improving as we walked up Glen Rosa and the finale was looking out from The Saddle to blue sky and the mainland which is today's blip. We walked some of the ridge on the left of the picture yesterday and Goat Fell was up to the right. It's been great to finally get an understanding of this beautiful mountain range on Arran.

That just leaves me to wish all my blip fellows a very Happy New Year. Enjoy the festivities ...we'll be fast asleep!