|
Once again we had a poor weather forecast and other events
and attractions, it being the Easter holidays. The day was
saved by the arrival of two new young explorers, Jonathan
and Laura C and their father Phil, up on a visit from the
south. We also had Howard, Philippa, Sam W and Sheila W with
Ellie along to hunt for charcoal and wild beasts.
The area we went to was around a place called Sron na Saobhaidh
(the last word pronounced a bit like sow-ee and referring
to a wild beast's den), hence the importance of Ellie. We
didn't find any wild beasts in person but there were some
bits of ground scratched up, possibly by badgers, and a few
pine martens had left calling cards about the place.
The first place we visited was a little stone building quite
near the edge of the sea, hidden away from everywhere. This
was a magazine used for storing explosives and a bit further
along the shore we came to the quarry where the explosives
had been used. This place is quite a puzzle since it looks
as if all the stone they took out is still piled up by the
shore. It seems to be mostly feldspar, which I would not have
thought valuable enough to repay the effort of extraction.
Another peculiar feature is that none of the stones seem to
have been drilled, so the explosives must have been placed
in cracks.
We spent quite a long time at the quarry, looking at the minerals
and also some mosses and liverworts growing on the wet rock
surfaces. When we moved off along the shore, we found another
small quarry, once again, with the extracted rock apparently
left on site.
Carrying on, we found a good recessed platform on the hill
and the possible site of some ancient houses. We also had
to negotiate a tricky bit of hill, but everyone got round
it OK.
A quick stop for Tunnocks and we were back in the cars and
down the coast to Port na h'Uamh, where we made a quick and
dry crossing to the cave and had a poke about. Before we left,
we saw the site of the graves of two sailors who had died
of fever many years ago.
The rain held off until after we got back and both of the
new explorers attempted a drawing, I picked out Jonathan's
view of the magazine.
John
Dye
|
|
