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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