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This expedition was unusual and I wasn't sure how it would
turn out. For this reason I limited the invitations since
I feared the transport arrangements would be difficult. I
shouldn't have worried, it all turned out well and next time
(there will be a next time) I will open it to everyone as
usual. The day, as it happens, started rather poorly, it rained
hard overnight and was still raining when we reached the island,
but it cleared at lunchtime and the afternoon was spectacular.
We had five explorers, Caleb, Caulay, Fern, Jan Hendrik and
Rowan and eight helpers: Andy L., Christina, Corinne, Howard,
John Dove, Pamela, Philippa and Sharon, plus Ellie as the
only dog, Cora having retired from expedition duties.
My usual practice is to
walk every route before I take an expedition, but this
was different since none of us had been on Carna before.
However, Andy Jackson and Alison were able to give us
some guidance as they came with us to show us the graveyard
and get us started. At this stage it was raining and
the wind was rather chilly, but we carefully looked
at the graveyard and picked out a few outlines which
could have been the church, plus an extraordinary name
on a grave: Ernshaw Hewer.
We circled the graveyard on the northern side and found
the base of a building against the cliff and then we
went to the point and found two more buildings near
the high point. |
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Going back to the west, we crossed the stream and found a
small group of six buildings, one of which seemed to be a
black house; it was very long and had a pronounced slope down
to what appeared to be the animal area at one end. We were
to find another similar house in the afternoon. Above this
little clachan, we found a cairn on the hill and two more
buildings against the head dyke. We crossed the dyke into
the plantation and found the base of another house in the
trees at the north end and possibly two more further in.
Then we returned to the hut which we used as a base and had
our sandwiches; for those of mature years, glasses of wine
were available from John Dove. As the wine lifted our spirits,
so the rain stopped and the sun came out and we set off on
the second exploration, towards the south end of the island.
We found a big cattle pen, close to where they used to swim
the cattle across the channel, and a boat clearance below
another long building with several other buildings close by.
Then we picked our way carefully around the coast, finding
some lovely grassy patches covered with flowers. I was looking
for carvings on the rocks above the shore, but we didn't quite
reach the area Andy had told us about. The time and the tiredness
told us this was a good place to stop for our Tunnock's wafers
and we had a good rest before climbing back over the hill
and arriving exactly on time at the floating jetty to catch
the boat back to Laga.
The eating places were not conducive to drawing, so my only
record of the expedition is photographic. I picked out this
view of everyone at the Tunnock's break.
John
Dye
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