Adventures on Arran
Reasons why the Isle of Arran is the busiest island in Scotland…
Almost 1,000,0000 visitors to Arran in 2018 (here). Just 13 Hotels on The Island
This page was originally written by the Sannox Hotel renovation team to list some of the adventures and things to do on Arran. We may grow the page as an amenity reference website for visitors. If we have missed off your island business, please feel free to get in touch (click here).
^^ Sannox Hotel, Island of Arran ^^
Things To Do on Arran
On this page summarise just a few of the adventures that the Isle of Arran has to offer. Ideal for folk who have bought a bedroom in our new Hotel-Room-Ownership initiative. Whether adrenalin-fuelled action-packed, or relaxation, there is a lot of enjoyment to be found…
The Mogabout all-terrain passenger vehicle is especially good for younger and older folk who might find hiking halfway up a mountain a bit more than their daily exercise regime can muster and can be booked for one hour or three hour expedition tours from the hotel.
Arran Venture Video
Grinduro: Scotland 2019. The Isle of Arran delivers once again. Video by Brady Lawrence. Brought to you by Canyon.
Posted by Grinduro on Friday, 23 August 2019
More Sedate Adventure
Efforts to provides special access to normally remote and unseen areas are made for visitors of lesser mobility. The Mogabout vehicle is ideal for this style of exploring…
Mogabout All Terrain Tours For Young and Old
Exceptionally suitable for grandparents and grandchildren! There is plenty more to do, at a gentler pace for those folk who are looking for a quieter style of island life. A main attraction that the island has is it caters for all ages and all stages, whether quiet monastic contemplation at the Holy Isle Buddhist Retreat, or the high energy of this. When the family all gets back from the day’s fun and enjoyment, at least the youngsters will be tired and ready for a good nights sleep.
Mogabout Tours
Click Here
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Accompanied Air Tours
For the more adventurous, here is something you can do which gives you a great view of the island – and incidentally the hotel where you may well own a room one day…
^^ Sannox Bay & Sannox Hotel In The Background ^^
Flying Fever Paragliding
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Arran RIB Sea Tours
Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) tours can be booked for coastal cruising or fast boat-a-batics. Also available for small island exploring. There are several interesting small islands a short RIB boat journey from the hotel…
^^ Jet Rib Tours, Isle of Arran ^^
We understand one of the rigid-inflatable-boat (RIB) tour operators may have retired. There should be another on the island of Arran. If not, then maybe call our office (here) as the main job here is to bring businesses back to life. So we may be able to assist suitably qualified personnel restart a RIB class boat tour company for the island of Arran.
Rib Tour Background Information
Click Here
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Signs of
Adventures On Arran
^^ Arran Signs ^^
Copyright Courtesy of Stephen Finn & Alamy
There are a lot of adventures to be enjoying on Arran. The signs are literally everywhere.
The details of Sannox Hotel and all of the renovation work to make it into a comfortable accommodation base for you and/or your guests is important.
But we would recommend that the varied menu of mischief and interesting things to do on the island has almost equal merit.
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Photo Tours
Inspiring Photography
^^ The Machrie Moor Stone Circles, Isle of Arran ^^
^^ Well Worth A Visit ^^
As well as being a fascinating and emotive place, the adventures from Dimitri Vasileiou are well worth looking into if you aspire to improve your snappy skills.
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Writing Novels
Arran has often captured the imagination of the fountain~pen artist. The tapping of typewriter keyboard.
You might notice a segue from the photo of Machrie Standing Stones above, to the artistic Cover of professor Archie Roy’s front cover of his novel Deadlight…
Confession time. Professor Roy was a very good family friend. So much so, that several of his novels were published by our family form: Kilbrannan Publishing at Ivy Cottage, Brodick in the 1980s by the director of Sannox bay Hotel’s parents. Print media runs in the family DNA. Although the keyboard being tapped for this page has mangled English coming out of the business end. A lot to o with getting the hang of HTML website coding, rather than the old Guttenberg printing press. Experiments and learning on the job helps. For example, Wikipedia is a good place to learn.
=> Three guesses which mischief-maker created Professor Roy’s Wikipedia page: click here.
=> The actual front-end of the well known internet website shows part of the process bringing useull information to many folk: here.
As for the novel “Deadlight.” It is a little bit dated now, but still a blistering, fast-paced read. As a youngster, being given the equivalent of an HG Wells or Alistair MacLean novel that takes place on the island of Arran, brings a tangible element that you know where the chases are happening and actually enjoy them all the more.
^^ DCI Dailey Novels: Click Here ^^
From Sannox Hotel
To The Fictional Home of DCI Dailey
That Is Future Mischief
At The Foot of his Page.
Our friend Denzil Meyrick is doing that right now with his DCI Daley series of books (more Wikipedia HTML coding practice: click here).
It is exciting to be able to advise that after a lot of hard work from Denzil Meyrik’s literary skills, the books are being made into a television detective series. Much of which will be filmed in Campbeltown and Argyll, just across the Kilbrannan Sound. Here is the fictional town in Denzil’s books and where we aim to transport our Sannox Hotel guests as part of the spectrum of Aran Adventures…
^^ Campbeltown, Kintyre, Argyll ^^
Davaar Island In The Distance…
Birthplace of Argyll Group plc
The last segment on this page is intended to be a way to add a new form of adventure, based ostensibly out of Sannox Hotel, but going all around the coast of Arran and across to Ailsa Craig Island + Davaar Island and of course to the Mull of Kintyre.
Many places where the DCI Dailey author is helping to bring alive ~ out of his highly acclaimed fleet of books.
=> Given all of this segment, we intend to hold writing workshops at Sannox Hotel and invite distinguished authors to give insightful and helpful Q&A sessions.
With respect to the deadlight Novel, mentioned at the top of this segment, that book is out of print. But yo can still get copies from Ebay and Amazon. For example: Click Here.
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Golf
Arran has many golf courses. Overlooking Holy Island above. Sannox Golf Course embraced by magnificent mountains pictured below…
Sannox Golf Course: A 5 Minute Walk From The Latest Hotel Ownership
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Mountain Climbing
Into climbing? Our latest hotel purchase/renovation and hotel-room-ownership is one of the places where many mountaineers end up staying once they walk back down Glen Sannox. Hence Argyll Group spending a great deal of time and effort on high-spec., insulation. To keep the property warm and dry whilst not costing a fortune in heating bills.
Atop the highest peak: Goat Fell. Brodick Bay to the left with Holy Isle peaking above it.
Mountain climbing is such a major attraction that the biggest retail shop in Brodick is dedicated to this venture.
Tuition Available For Mountain Novices
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Diving
Whether you are an experienced diver or a novice requiring tutor and guidance, the coastal waters around the island are a wondrous place to explore…
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Pony Trekking & Horse Riding
Very close to the hotel, in fact your hotel-room-ownership property may well be seen in the background…
At a gallop, or gently with a canter. You choose your pace of life…
On the beaches, or up towards the mountains…
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Hill Walking & Mountain Climbing
Arran is famous for these adventures…
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Holy Isle, Meditation Centre
There is a world renowned Buddhist Retreat on the Holy Isle (here)…
Holy Isle, Off of The Island of Arran. Photo: Jason Hawkes
Access is via a passenger ferry from Lamlash to the island…
The Buddhist Retreat Centre runs various events…
Click Here
Holy Isle: Former Lighthouse Keepers’ Houses. Now A Renowned Buddhist Retreat Centre
Lama Yeshe Rinpoche (here)
The founder and vision holder of the Holy Isle Project is Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master in the Kagyu tradition.
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Aerial Drone Photography Courses
Drone Photography On Arran
This is new to Aran, but due to the scenery and subject matter is becoming very popular.
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^^ A Lot of Adventures For You on Arran ^^
It isn’t just ownership of part of a hotel this page is narrating…
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Something Extra We Are Proposin:g
Sea Tours
Islands of
Arran + Bute + Cumbrae + Ailsa Craig + Davaar Island
The island of Arran is very popular. The busiest island on the west coast as serviced by CalMac Ferries. Almost a million tourists each year, many of whom are hill-walkers and emerge from Glen Sannox which is a just a few paces north of Sannox Hotel. In that respect the hotel has always had a decent and regular number of guests.
But there is something extra we are hoping to arrange for Sannox Hotel…
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An Exciting New Adventure
For Sannox Hotel
In 2001, Russ McLean and fellow Argyll Group plc friends had the very good fortune to purchase a former CalMac ferry called the MV Lochmor…
^^ MV Lochmor. Specification: Here ^^
(c) 2002 Argyll Group plc/Russ McLean
130 Passengers & 1 Car.
The seller, CalMac Ferries required us to change the name of the ship away from “MV Lochmor”. hence the new name: “MV Loch Awe”.
At that time we were working to reinstate a ferry service out of Campbeltown where Russ was also working as a Harbourmaster. This renewed ferry service would structurally improve the economic conditions and increase the jobs available in Campbeltown and Ballycastle.
However, the keel had been laid for a replacement to MV Pioneer. That meant the MV Pioneer would be coming up for sale under statutory government asset guidelines. This was a much larger ship to the MV Lochmor/Loch Awe and would be ideal for bringing the Scotland-Northern Ireland route back to life..
So Russ sold the MV Loch Awe and argyll Group plc made several offers to buy or “option” the CalMac owned MV Pioneer…
^^ MV Pioneer ^^
(c) 1988 Courtesy of Mr Neil King
356 Passengers & 32 Cars.
Specification: Click Here
Ideal For reinstating Campbeltown-Ardrossan
& Campbeltown~Ballycastle
Alas, CalMac declined to sell the MV Pioneer to Argyll Group plc and did an “unusual” deal with Corlett Lines, in August 2004. Unusual in that CalMac wrote to Russ McLean to say MV Pioneer “was not for sale”. Yet within 14 days a sale had been concluded which to another party after 2 years of enquiries from Argyll Group plc. The controversial sale by CalMac Ferries to Corlett Lines had the useful effect of getting MV Pioneer well away from Scottish waters.
Renamed Brenda Corlett, after the new owner’s wife, the MV Pioneer/MV Brenda Corlett now serves the islands of Sao Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa.
As a side note, such was the upset caused at the loss of jobs in Argyll, from this unusual sale that took MV Pioneer to the Equator, that a detailed complaint was submitted to the Scottish Transport Minister. No luck there. So the complaint was progressed to the UK Transport Minister and further to the EU Transport Minister.
=> Eventually the complaint surrounding MV Pioneer and was ruled on by EU Transport Commissioner Jaques Barrot. . That ruling was in favour of Argyll Group plc.
At this time, CalMac then had all of its ships and piers removed from its ownership and placed into the ownership of a new entity called CMAL Ltd/ We can include more from our files on this if any islanders are interested (click here to make contact).
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20 Years Later
Might we have…
Sannox Sea Tours!
UK Transport Minister h
f São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea, straddling
Our Director & Argyll Group plc