| There had been a few midges
about in the previous few days so I took a lot of sprays and
stuff, I needn’t have bothered since the wind kept them
away. We had an energetic team for this outing: Ben, Fern,
Bobbie L., and Rowan with Clark, Howard, Maris, Pamela and
Sharon, plus Jamie, showing great enthusiasm, as ever.
We started at Brunery Bridge and I read out a piece about
Richard Neilson having great difficulty fording the river
in 1755, before the bridge was built. Then we set off up the
Dalilea track, stopping at the top to examine General Ross’
Cairn. Crossing the old bridge on the track was tricky since
it was very muddy on the road, but everyone pushed on at a
good speed. We hardly looked at the group of cairns but paused
at a small excavation at the side of the road which, Clark
explained as a glacial deposit.
After another hundred metres or so, I turned to cross the
rough ground to Torr a’ Bhreitheimh, which seems, from
Dwelly’s dictionary, to mean the Hill of Judgment. I
would be interested if any Gaelic experts could tell me if
this interpretation is correct, and what the likely origin
of the name could be. Getting to the hill proved to be a bit
of a problem, (as it had been on the last visit almost ten
years before): we had to cross an electric fence, which, as
Jamie pointed out, was live at the time. The young explorers
and our trusty dog suffered the indignity of being lifted
over the fence and nobody got another shock.
Then we climbed the hill and all the time the wind was increasing
and the rain was getting wetter, but everyone just plodded
on and nobody seemed to notice the rain at all. We climbed
over the hill, noting a possible building on the sheltered
side and easily negotiated another single strand electric
fence (which was apparently switched off anyway).
After quite a long struggle across the hill we reached our
main objective, the Great Wall. This is an enormous structure,
forming an incomplete enclosure at the foot of the hill. The
stone wall is almost two metres high and is certainly over
half a kilometre long, it looks as if the open end at the
bottom might once have been closed by a fence. There is a
house close to one of the gateways, and built inside the enclosure.
The wall seems to have been built up to a height of about
one and a half metres and then raised by at least another
half a metre at a later date. At one stage we looked at a
finished end at one of the gateways and the explorers saw
how the wall sloped in at the top and had long stones running
through it for strength.
Eventually we reached a fine stream and waterfall and stopped
for Tunnock’s wafers for many and a bonio for one. Still
having plenty of energy, the young explorers carried on up
the burn and it took quite a time to recover them and get
everyone together for a picture. We must have been enjoying
ourselves because it wasn’t until I looked at the pictures
that I realised how wet we all were.
We went down the burn to look at the big waterfall, which
was smaller than I expected, considering the conditions. An
embankment to provide water for the old Dalilea mill had redirected
the burn and everyone had a look at this feature, and also
at a wych elm growing close by.
There was a big area of enclosed arable ground nearby and
we crossed this and also a lovely meandering stream which
represented a glacial feature which Clark explained to the
explorers.
We only had one snag left, the electric fence, which Jamie
again confirmed to be live. However, we all ended up safely
on the other side and walked back along the track to Brunery,
looking at a ewe and her lamb guarding the cairn as we walked
past.
This was an exhausting an incident-filled expedition and the
three explorers who went to the Blue Parrot each turned out
a good drawing of different aspects of it. I picked out Rowan’s
view of the boys jumping out of a tree near the big wall,
note their hair blown back by the velocity.
John
Dye
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