Expedition 215 - 6th June 2009
The Black Pool

 

A great day on the hill, spoiled only by my failure to take a picture of the group, and we were all looking so smart. Six of us set out from Acharacle, Robbie L., and Zack with Howard, John Dove and Richard arriving at the Smirisary lay-by in good time, where we found Sandra waiting, so we were seven in all, plus Ellie the expedition dog. Before attacking the hill I set up the telescope and we checked out the bay for whales. Zack thought he saw one, and Robbie spied some people in a sailing boat, giving us an incredibly detailed description of their clothing.

Then we set off on the long climb up to Loch na Bairness, stopping on the way to examine some cairns and a big rock with a shelter underneath. When we reached the loch we all went to the remains of the old boat house and had a quick search for the submerged boat I saw on the last visit, but it seemed to have disappeared.

I had set our destination as the black pool, an dubh lochan, and we had to cross a lot of really rough ground to get around the loch. Both of the boys were in very observant form and Robbie managed to catch a butterfly which I tried desperately to photograph, but with little success. Then he found a bright blue damselfly and I didn’t do well with that one either. Finally he got the damselfly to settle on his finger and I got a couple of good pictures of it. It was a male common blue damselfly, Enallagma cyathigerum; I think the butterfly was a meadow brown.

Then we set off again on what seemed to be an interminable climb to the black pool. It was lucky that we had Sandra since she knew the way well and was able to reassure us we were not far from our target. Eventually we reached it and the adults had a sit down and restored our energy with a wafer. The boys had plenty of energy to spare and managed some rough games in the water, getting fairly wet for the walk back.

For the return I set off fairly directly down the hill over some more very rough ground. At one point we reached a very rickety old bridge and I went across first – fortunately we all got across. Then it was a quick walk to the track and back down to the cars and back to the Blue Parrot.

John Dye

 


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