Dancing At Lunacy

parkrun #408 event#113

Reason for visit – trying a weekend away with Toby!

Access:

We took the ferry to Cairnryan and drove up the lovely Ayrshire coast. Largs is well served with buses and trains, so public transport is an option as well.

Facilities:

Parking is available at the Vikingar museum complex – there’s even a couple of electric charge points, which we made use of. There are public toilets near the Fishworks, 40p, tap your card.

Course:

It’s up and down the prom 3 and a bit times, dead flat, with a “keep left” advisory and watch out for other prom users, especially dog walkers. Turnaround point is by the Fishworks restaurant, and a visit to this award winning establishment is highly recommended! When we visited the weather had turned from being grey and dreich, to being sunny but icily cold. This meant a rather spectacular background, with the snowy peaks of Arran behind the closer island of Cumbrae, the ferry going back and forth.

Crowd:

It’s a fairly small event – I was finisher 60, and I’d been doing most of the course with the tailwalker. But there were some visitors form Manchester and other parts of Scotland. I was delighted to discover when the infographics summary was produced that I was the runniest runner! Friendly and welcoming volunteers.

Time:

We’d set off at a pleasant jog, keeping up with some of the other canine participants. But. One of the things I’d been worried about Toby was that he is such a creature of habit, always goes potty in the same spot in the garden, never when out on a walk, that I hoped he’d be able to find somewhere suitable in this foreign land. So when the moment happened during our run, I was happy enough to stop and clean up. And then 10 minutes later, another one! And then a full 5 minute pee. By this point the tail walker (and gorgeous dog Charlie) had caught up with us, so we spent the rest of the run chatting together. So my time of 50 minutes was OK I reckon!

And the rest:

We absolutely loved Largs, with its many dog-friendly establishments. The Haylee Hotel couldn’t do enough for us, and the Anchor Inn, with its roaring fire and Toby curled up under the table was the picture perfect weekend away setting. Toby took most of his new experiences in his stride – the Pet Lounge on the ferry, sleeping in his travel crate, getting in a lift, but the ferry stairs with their open treads were just a bit too scary (hence the lift). They were OK going down, mind.

All my parkruns:

NI (and other) parkruns: summary list

Filed under: Dogs, Parkrun, running, Scotland, travel | Tagged: parkrun, parkrun tourism |