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
|
|
|