| The long-awaited 200th expedition
turned out to be a rather wet day. I am sure this was why
we didn’t get a great many attendees. We were twelve
in all, not counting Ellie: Fern, Frederik, Jan Hendrik, Robbie
L., and Rowan, plus Christoph, John Dove, Howard, Pamela,
Sharon and Stephen, with Ellie as the celebratory dog.
For those of you who haven’t been there, and not many
have, Oronsay is an island on the south side of Loch Sunart
opposite Glenmore. To get there we went to Laga, where we
had kindly been given permission to park at the fish farm,
and Andy and Sue collected us in the Laurenca. For all the
exciting exploration of a ‘new’ island, I think
the trips out and back may have been the most memorable parts
of the day, particularly for those explorers who had a chance
to steer the ship.
When we arrived at the island we came ashore in a sheltered
bay and were surprised to find a cabin cruiser already there
at anchor. It was all closed up and seemed to be abandoned
but late in the afternoon a man emerged on deck, very surprised
to see so many people on a deserted island.
It was a bit of a struggle through the bracken and heather
to get up from the shore to the higher ground but then the
going got easier and we were able to get to the first group
of houses by walking across a nice grassy field. We crossed
a big bed of bracken to reach the next house and found signs
that someone had camped there in the past day or two.
Then we started the exploration of the island, first crossing
eastwards to a small wood where we found another house, this
time with an abandoned and collapsed tent and some equipment
in it. We left this and crossed the hill to the south eventually
coming onto the summit of a small hill. The midges were becoming
troublesome and we moved to a higher hilltop before stopping
for the first break. While we were there we found a very big
frog, which Rowan held to have its picture taken.
The next stage involved carefully climbing down the hill and
then crossing a very soft muddy shore. Halfway across we found
a mysterious wall, which seemed to have no purpose. When we
got to the other side we were able to find a deer track which
led us round the shore and up onto the hill again. After a
big struggle we got to the west side of the island where I
expected to see a lot of seals but there were no seals there
at all. We carried on along the ridge until we got to the
cairn on the top where we had another break and took some
expedition photographs.
Eventually we left the cairn and went down the south side
of the hill, where Richard almost trod on a deer fast asleep
in the heather. We found a good deer path and made fairly
good progress down to Loch Droma Buidhe, the only difficult
bit was a deep pool which Frederik managed to not quite leap,
twice.
The shore was rocky, slippery and dangerous and I was quite
relieved when we got around the corner and could see the wood
again. Unfortunately this meant pushing through a lot more
heather and bracken and we were all pleased to reach the open
ground under the trees. From there it was a short walk up
the hill to the houses where we finished the last of the wafers
and had a rest until the Laurenca came to fetch us.
This time we were better prepared and our transfer to the
ship was quite professional. Once again, we found several
steersmen, and one steerswoman among the explorers and Jan
Hendrik was at the helm as we turned in to the Laga jetty.
Although the weather could have been better, this was a fine
expedition, but we couldn’t have done it without Andy
and his fine boat. The Laurenca is available as a ferry between
Laga and Tobermory and points between; I strongly recommend
it.
John
Dye
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