Another good day with no problems at all. We had four explorers:
Benjamin, Caleb, Caulay, Fern, Rowan and Thomas. with Corinne,
Howard, Pamela and Sharon as helpers and not a single dog.
Before we started the expedition proper we went to the picnic
site where I released a wood mouse caught in the Toad Hall
live trap. It would have been nice if it had hung around a
bit for everyone to see it but it went off like a bullet in
to the bracken.
Then we parked at Langal Farm and walked up to the start of
the Low Road, looking at the old building with round corners
as we went. Once at the Low Road the explorers heard how this
track was once the only road to Kinlochmoidart and that it
had dozens of small cairns along it marking the resting spots
of funeral processions in times gone by. We stopped at each
group of cairns as we passed them.
We also stopped at the fish farm cages and had a look at the
gulls and herons there. Ben and Tom made an excursion onto
the shore and found a pair of binoculars on the beach. Then
we pushed on to the road junction and found a way through
the fence and climbed the hill to the site of the old mica
pit and the explorers heard how it had been opened during
the war when there was a possibility of losing the supply
of mica from India. We had a wafer each and then picked up
a few bits of mica before continuing up the hill to the main
road again.
On the road, we stopped at the bridge which was once said
to be haunted by a witch, but nobody saw her.
Then we made a diversion into the woods and crossed to the
rock I call the Fish Rock. This hill is called Torr na Slinngrith
on the map but I don't know what it means and I wondered if
it was the same one which I had been told about which had
a name like Clingearich. It was named after the clinking sound
made by a ghost in chains and apparently somebody once dressed
up in a sheet and clinked some chains to frighten a passer-by
but the man attacked him with his stick and he was lucky to
survive.
We stopped at the fish rock for a few pictures and then returned
to the cars and a quick drive back to the Pantry. John Dye
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