Expedition 97 - 27th September 2003
Newton Burn


This expedition grew and grew. When I got to the triangle, JD and Amie were there trying to get conkers down from the tree. For ages it seemed that nobody else would turn up, then Pamela drove up with Benjamin and Thomas and Bruce, at the same time another car arrived with John and Philippa and then John Donaldson turned up. Finally Mairi arrived with Eilish and Kerry and we were ready to go. In Kentra we stopped for Katie and when we arrived at Newton, two more cars arrived with Carol-Anne and the Staces: Peter, Adrian, Peter William, Rebecca and Edward, bringing Chloe with them, so it turned out to be the biggest expedition since we went to the Green Isle almost three years before.

The weather was marvellous, the only problem was the rain of the previous two days which made the ground very wet, but the explorers were well prepared and their welly boots marched through the Newton Burn in fine style.

The first stop was the site of Jessie's house and then we went to the old spring, which is still well-known in the district. It was a bit weedy and not suitable for a drink on the day, but it wouldn't take much to get it into good order again. Leaving the spring we set off to the beach which was covered with millions of lugworm casts. Our first trip was across the beach to the west side where we had a look at the large boathouse and saw some trestles with Pacific oysters in bags. We stopped for a wafer on top of a little hill and looked for seals in the channel with the binoculars. We saw a big boulder on a hilltop which looked a bit like the Dalnabreac Rocking Stone so we all climbed up to see if it rocked, but it didn't. On the way up we crossed a lot of ground burnt in the fires last spring and saw the young heather sprouting up.
We spent some time on top of the hill enjoying the view before we set off back to the beach and down to the bottom as the tide was now out. Mairi found a very large piece of local coral which Eilish did well to carry back undamaged. Everyone spent some time on the nice beach below the wooden house and we would have stayed longer but it was getting late so we returned to the Pantry for some lunch.John Dye

   




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