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A super day for the celebratory walk, and a good turnout of
fourteen explorers: Aeneas, Alasdair, Alexander, Benjamin,
Calum, Donald, Edward, Fern, Jamie, Jan Hendrick, Nicole,
Rowan, Sterling and Thomas; with eight helpers, Ann-Marie,
Chris, Dot, Howard, Hughie, Pamela, Philippa, Sharon and Sue
with Ellie and Roo examining all the doggy places.
I took the telescope in case the sea was flat calm and we
could look for whales, but there was too much breeze so we
set off right away from the Smirisary car park. We made very
good time to the first lookout point and had another look
for whales while the team reassembled after spreading out
a bit on the climb. Then we followed the path to the top of
Smirisary village and crossed to the beach path at the bottom
of the hill, where we paused again to start on the coast path
in a group.
I tried to get a picture of the expedition negotiating the
steep path by the ravine, but the dogs wouldn’t wait
for the camera. We pushed on immediately to the far side of
the hills, seeing two flocks of migrating geese on the way,
and assembled again before taking a side track down to the
shore.
Here we found a good corn kiln, correctly identified by Jan
Hendrik, and a very long cave in which a few heads were bumped
and shins bruised. However, the explorers made a good job
of examining every inch and managed to locate a spider egg
coccoon.
We left the first cave and moved round a headland to a second
cave which many explorers found even more exciting, partly
because it had a big pool in it. They got a long way in (several
people had brought torches) and they found a stalactite hanging
from the roof.
It took a bit of effort to get everyone out of the cave and
they then followed the old smugglers’ path to the shore
to see where the boats would have been loaded. Then it was
back up to the main path and down to the beach where a good
deal of water splashing went on. Most of the explorers would
have stayed all day, but I had to get them all moving after
the Tunnock’s break and we walked fairly briskly back
to the village.
We stopped at Margaret Leigh’s old house and climbed
the steep path to the main track and finally arrived back
at the car park just before one o’clock.
When we got to the Pantry we found an iced chocolate cake
had been prepared as a 150th celebration, thank you all, it
was much appreciated.
It was a very tiring walk and although everyone made an effort
to draw something, I think the technical challenge of the
caves and rocks proved too much for many. Nicole, adopted
a different approach and did a nice drawing of the chocolate
cake.
John
Dye
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