Expedition 186 - 16th February 2008
Above Salen Village

 


We, or at least the young explorers, missed an expedition due to foul weather and conflicting attractions and this was partly a re-run of the one I did a fortnight before with the adults. We had eight explorers: Benjamin, Caleb, Caulay, Fern, Jan Hendrick, Robbie L. Rowan and Sam; six adult helpers, Andy, Corinne, Nicky, Pamela, Philippa and Sharon, with Ellie as the pathfinding dog.

We parked at the Wood School entrance and carefully crossed the road at the bottom of the armco barrier. Then we climbed down through the trees to look at the Bronze Age cairn with its grave among the stones. Then we quickly got back to the road and walked up to the Forestry lay-bye at the top.

We took the path leading back down the hill towards Salen, noting the places where it changed from a Forestry track to an old access route. About halfway down we got to the junction and took the right turn and climbed up the hill on the grassy track. This was a steep hill and some of the earlier boyish enthusiasm was starting to wear off when we got to the coloured marker. This is a little flag at the left side of the track and it marks an access for a quad bike. We followed this track, keeping high on the hill to avoid the felled trees scattered all around. After a time we found a small knoll which appeared to be another ancient cairn and just beyond it there was a nice grassy patch where we stopped for a wafer break.

The next section was rather tricky since the quad bike marks had finished and we navigated through the dead trees using deer tracks. Eventually, by good fortune I found the good track which lead us through the broken ground and came out at the Salen water supply tanks. By this time the group was rather spread out and we waited to let everyone catch up.

We followed the path down and took the right branch and, after a short time, I decided to cut across the ground hoping to get a good route through the broken timber. Unfortunately I didn't pick a very good route and we spent a long time struggling through trunks and branches before we finally reached the old Pirn Mill reservoir. We continued to the remains of the old dam, and there the boys discovered a fascinating whirlpool, obviously above an open pipe near the dam.

Everyone had a look at the dam and I took a few pictures before we started following the stream down towards the village. We saw the remains of the old sluice valve chamber and the channel that originally fed the trough over the big waterwheel, although there was no sign of the trough supports. From here we had a bit of difficulty getting through the rhoddies but eventually we all ended up at the public road, and it was still only 12 o'clock.

There were some fine drawings this time, I think the standard is improving. I picked out Fern's diagram of the grave in the cairn, with the grave in the middle overhung with grass, and people standing all round on the stones of the cairn. It also shows trees growing on the cairn, one of the distinctive features.

John Dye





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