After my run around part of the island a few days ago, I was told of the Ramsey Island Three Peaks Challenge.  This ‘competition’ was set by a previous volunteer, Glyn Holt, in 2008, and involves running the tourist track, starting and finishing at the gateway to the Bungalow and taking in all three of Ramsey Island’s huge peaks (the towering Carn Ysgubor – 101 metres, the enormous Carn Llundain – 136 metres and the mighty Foel Fawr – 72 metres). The route is approximately 3.5 miles long and Glyn set the benchmark for the challenge with a time of 46 minutes.  In 2011, Tom Pinches broke the record, setting a time of 42 minutes and that stood until this afternoon.

Much to my amazement, particularly considering my age disadvantage (with at least 10 years on the previous contenders), I set a time of 38 minutes 56 seconds. I think I may have taken a slight shortcut but if the others have gone the longer route, this would only add around a minute to their time.

My record may not last very long, however, as Tom is returning next week for another stint of volunteering.

We had some departures and arrivals today with volunteers Nicola and Steve leaving and Harriet arriving.  We also had quite a few visitors with 17 on the 10:00 boat and 25 on the 12:00. I spent the day helping with the visitors and then tried to do a wheatear survey but didn’t get very far after talking to a visitor about a possible peregrine nest and trying to find chough for another group of visitors.

The weather today was spectacular with almost wall-to-wall sunshine.  There was a cool north-westerly breeze at the beginning of the day but this lessened as the day progressed – I’m amazed I haven’t been sunburnt yet!