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I was a bit late arriving at the Triangle and, unusually,
there was nobody there. I even had time for a few photographs
of the gravestones and when I came back the place was still
explorer-free. Just as I was deciding to pack it in and get
out of the rain, explorers started to arrive from all directions
and we got quite a few in the end: Alasdair C., Allan, Chris,
Edward, Jan Hendrik, John Donaldson, Katie, Peter William,
Robbie C., Robin D., Sarah and Zander. Helping us was Andrew,
Howard, Joan and George. Incidentally, Howard became the 500th
helper I have had, thank you all again.
To say the day was wet would be something of an understatement,
most of the explorers, and all of the older ones, were absolutely
soaked within the first ten minutes, and it didn't really
let up all morning. We were going over the prescribed route
of the High Mingarry Expedition so Zander and Allan took the
map and compass and led us up onto the hill.
We had a bit of a delay locating the quad bike track but otherwise
the route seemed to be fairly easy to follow: we followed
the dyke up the hill to the ravine and examined Domnhuil Dubh
Laidir's Bridge and then had our wafers at the Toad Rock.
Then we scrambled down the hill, or in some instances rolled
and jumped, and did a tour of some of the houses of the old
village.
Our most distant point was the spruce tree, which had been
struck by lightning in 1998. Although it was still short of
a big strip of bark it seemed to be recovering well and the
damage to the surrounding ground was now grassed over.
We returned to the track via the burn and another group of
houses and then, although it was only 11.10, I decided the
poor explorers had endured enough and we returned to the Pantry
to get warm and at least partly dry.
John
Dye
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