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An unexpectedly dry start and an expected soaking finish,
but it was a good outing withall. There were eight explorers,
Edward, Fern, Frederik, Jan Hendrik, Jonathan C., Jonathan
E., Robbie C., and Rowan, with Christina, Christoph, Howard,
Phil and Sharon, but no official dogs although an un-named
collie turned up to fetch sticks. This expedition marked the
thousandth attendance of an adult helper, thank you all.
We concentrated into three cars and by the time I got to Strontian,
the nameless collie was already running around fetching sticks
for the early arrivals. He kept with us for most of the morning
and our first objective was the woodland walk behind Dalmhor.
I was particularly keen that everyone should see the enormous
silver fir, and it was a big hit, so much so that many of
the explorers would have been happy to stay by it for the
rest of the morning, but we had to move on.
We went back and through the path to Strontian Hotel, pausing
briefly to look at the house that turned into a church and
then back into a house; and also looking at the old buildings
at the back of the hotel. At the front of the hotel is the
Branks’ Stone and I explained its function, although
I’m not sure that the explorers believed me.
The road was busy and it was a tricky crossing to the Post
Office to look at the site of the old lead smelter in the
arched basement. Then we dodged more traffic going back into
the village and crossing the road bridge. We looked at the
old Smiddy, which was latterly a filling station before Mr
Tongue came.
There was a brief diversion to look at the back of the forestry
unit, where there used to be a sawmill, and a pause to look
at the old school. By this time the rain had started and it
got wetter and wetter for the rest of the morning. We plodded
on to the church, with a slight pause where some members diverted
in order, they said, to gain energy from the trees –
they gained sufficient to finish the walk anyway.
We had a look in the churchyard and took the opportunity to
have our wafers in the shelter of a yew tree. Then we continued
to the old black shed and down the side turn to see the river.
Several explorers took the opportunity to test the integrity
of their wellies in the fast-flowing water.
Leaving the river we retraced our steps to visit the old graveyard,
apparently two of the explorers found an electric fence on
the way and assured themselves that it was working efficiently.
The big cairn in the graveyard was very impressive, but it
was difficult to read the inscriptions on the wet gravestones,
so we squelched out and back along the river walk, pausing
to pat a horse who came over for a break in the general monotony
of eating grass in the rain.
By the time we reached the cars, several explorers were in
a terminally soaked condition and opted out of a visit to
the Blue Parrot in favour of an early bath and some dry clothes.
The remaining hardy souls recovered sufficiently to produce
some good drawings; I have selected Fern’s view of the
big tree with a section of cut tree beside it showing the
many rings.
John
Dye
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