Expedition 212 - 12th April 2009
Bunalteachen

 

Another nice day and a fair turnout, five explorers: Fern, Jonathan C., Robbie C., Robbie L., and Rowan, plus five adults, Johnnie, Maris, Phil, Richard L., and Sharon with Jamie to sniff out the badgers.

We parked at Malcolm and Rosemary’s house and walked long the busy road to the wood, where the explorers maintained a polite silence after I explained that I used to drive along what is now a grassy track before the new road was made. We went past a reed bed and crossed the stream before starting our long climb up the hill.

Halfway up the hill we reached an old recessed platform with a group of logs on it and I explained that this patch was used as a camp site in the 1990s. Not far away was a badger hole, which Jamie investigated, advising us not to get too close.

We carried on up the hill, following a badger track and eventually reached a little patch of farmland, with walls and cultivation marks and a lovely waterfall and bathing pool in the burn. We didn’t find a building, but there was a level place where it might have been. Around the edge of the ground there were hazel trees – it was beautiful site.

After this we started to descend back into the old oak woods and eventually we got back to the stream close to the old camp site. There we stopped for a wafer break. Jamie showed a remarkable turn of speed when he intercepted a Tunnock’s wafer just as I was passing it to Fern. It was gone, wrapper and all, in a couple of seconds, this does not count as a crime to a Labrador.

After the break we had to negotiate a treacherous area of fallen and rotting trees and the group split up into three parties with different ideas of the best route down. Richard, Robbie L., Jamie and I got to the other side first and we found a nest of big wood ants with thousands of ants on the top. Jamie came to have a look and told us not to get too close. The nest had been damaged by badgers in the winter and the ants on the top seemed to be having a meeting to decide how to get things organised. There were already some ants out on the trails starting to collect construction material.

When everyone had seen the ants, we went back into the conifers and down through the wayleave to the road. I couldn’t find some of the features in the lower wood so we crossed to the beach and walked round the shore to the Gillespie’s house. On the way, Fern found a nice Pelican’s foot shell among the seaweed.

The photograph shows the team near a spectacular regrown fallen oak tree – I didn’t notice that Fern and Robbie L. were missing at the time.

John Dye



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