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This was the best expedition ever in the opinion of some of
the participants - we got a great day, plenty of interesting
features to look at and a chance to play on the beach. It
was a good turnout of fourteen explorers: Abbie, Alexander,
Alexandria, Allan, Benjamin T., Carol-Anne, Hugo, John Donaldson,
Loren, Matthew, Matthew Evans, Robin, Ruth and Sarah; plus
Emmanuelle, John Dove, José, Philippa and Sandra as
helpers with dogs Brucie and Lady to fetch things.
Since it was a calm day, and John Donaldson had been out fishing
nearby the day before, there was a chance of a lot of fish
in the bay, which could attract a whale or dolphin. Our first
stop on the walk was at a lookout point where we got a good
view out to Eigg - the sea was quite flat but we didn't see
any whales. Then we scrambled down the steep path into Smirisary
village, coming out incidentally at the house where Margaret
Leigh used to live. We crossed the village and I took a picture
of everyone on the rocks.
The next bit was the paths to the White Sands, very muddy
in places, those with wellies were glad they took them. We
made a diversion towards the beach to examine a big cave which
was once used as a house, nearly everyone got right to the
back of the cave in spite of not having a torch. Outside the
cave was an old corn kiln, plus a lot of stinging nettles,
which resulted in our only casualties.
It was then just a short walk to the beach, where the sun
was shining and almost everyone went into the sea. There were
thousands of little bees in the grass - after a quick demonstration
of their lack of aggression, everyone ignored them. Alexandria
found the only cowrie shell.
We came back via the top of the village and the high path
- some of us were pretty tired by the time we got back to
The Pantry.
John
Dye
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