| Once again, the forecast was
very poor and we all wore our woollies and ended up getting
boiled in the sunshine. Not a big turnout of explorers –
Zack’s birthday party was a big counter-attraction -
four explorers, Benjamin, Fern, Rowan and Thomas, plus five
adults, Howard, Julie, Pamela, Rob and Sharon, no dogs this
time.
We parked at Ann Henderson’s house and made our way
westwards along the shore. There were plenty of distractions,
some fine old agricultural machinery and three pairs of greylag
geese on the beach. When we got to the old sheep fank we found
the first tadpoles of the year hatched out in the old sheep
dip. There were some good old boat clearances along the beach
and we went inland above one of these looking for a house,
but we only found some holly trees and bits of possibly cultivated
ground. The west end of the peninsula had quite a few forestry
trees growing on it.
We found an animal track which led us down to the beach and
halfway down got a good view of the old fish trap near the
Ardery picnic site. When we got to the bottom of the animal
track, we found the signature of the animals in the shape
of several otter spraints on a hummock of grass.
Leaving the rocks, we squelched across the oozy beach to the
high tide mark where we could see the line of mysterious stone
heaps. The wind was a bit stronger here and we carried on
into the woods, following an old dyke up the hill. Halfway
up there was a tree covered in a thick growth of ivy and just
as we arrived, a big tawny owl flew out. It didn’t seem
to fly far, but we couldn’t find it again.
We reached the main road and crossed it and puffed our way
up the wooded hill in the sunshine until we found a convenient
recessed platform, where we took a rest and had our Tunnock’s
wafer. I explained how the platforms had been used by the
charcoal burners in the past but I couldn’t find any
charcoal, however, Ben and Tom did some probing about and
found a good piece on the surface of the platform.
Leaving the platform, we climbed around the edge of the hill
and joined the Ardery track for a short distance. On the right
side was the remains of a very old settlement and we looked
at some of the rather indistinct house outlines and found
the big pollard, which had fallen during the past winter.
We made one more diversion to look at the burn, which seemed
to have an old dam built over it, and finally crossed the
hill again to the track and walked back down the road to Cuil
na Mara.
For once, all our explorers seemed keen to do a picture, it
was a shame I had forgotten the pens, so they had to share
one between them.
John
Dye
|
|
