|
The forecast had been poor since the middle of the week, but
it turned out to be another fantastic day for the expedition.
We had another good turnout, twelve explorers: Alasdair C.,
Alexander, Benjamin, Calum, Carol-Anne, Chris, Edward, Jan
Hendrick, Nicole, Robbie C., Sterling and Thomas; with eight
helpers, Gary, Heather, Howard, John Dove, Johnny, Maureen,
Pamela and Philippa with Ellie and Roo assisting with the
tracking. This was the twentieth expedition for Carol-Anne
and Edward, making twenty-eight explorers who have done over
19 expeditions.
With so many lads and an abundance of sticks to hand, there
was a degree of boisterousness, but we covered a lot of ground
and made some nice discoveries. I pointed out the base of
an old bridge close to the first stone bridge and everyone
had a look at the clay drainage tiles in an oak glade half-way
to the second bridge. We passed the top gate and had a look
at the ‘blacksmith’s house’ and the straightened
length of burn before carefully crossing the fallen fence
and making our way into the plantation.
The taller members of the party had some difficulty getting
through to another oak glade but after this it got slightly
easier. We followed an old deer track up the side of the hill
and the boys in the lead found a group of holes which seemed
likely to be a badger sett, although there was no bedding
around. All we could find in the vicinity was an old bone,
so we moved on and finally got to a nice grassy area under
thinly-planted larch. There was a good rolling hill here but
nobody felt like rolling, perhaps it wasn’t wet enough,
so we pushed on to the top of the hill and into the old settlement
I call High Mingarry East. There was increasing interest as
we found better and better houses until we reached the last
one on the edge of the wood. Getting the two dogs and all
the explorers across the deer fence caused even more excitement
and after looking at another old bridge base we crossed the
stream and had our wafers in yet another old building.
Here John, Philippa and Ellie left us for urgent business
elsewhere and we continued up the quad bike track to the top
of the hill and stopped for pictures at the ‘Toad Rock’.
From here it was only a few metres to the ‘magic’
bridge of Domnhuil Dubh Laidir, which the explorers climbed
under although I can’t say if each made a wish. It was
a bit of a struggle for everyone to get back on the path and
we then set off across the rough ground to the woods and zig-zagged
our way through back to the track and home to the pantry.
Halfway down the track the boys found a dragonfly and I got
a photograph of it sitting on Benjamin’s hand, it was
a four-spotted chaser.
I picked out Jan Hendrick’s drawing showing two stick-bearing
explorers examining the holes under the trees.
John
Dye
|
|
