Another lovely sunny day for
the most dangerous expedition of the year, since it is almost
all on the main road; not only that but it coincided with
the Morgan Rally so there were a lot of nice cars to watch.
We started out with ten explorers and had eleven by the time
we finished: Becky D, Billy, Calum R., Ewan S., Fern, Jonathan
C., Laura C., Lucy D., Roslyn, Rowan and Stewart S., with
six adults, Fiona S., Jan, Phil, Philippa, Sharon and Simon,
plus Ellie and Rocky to assist with tracking.
Surprisingly, all of us assembled at Acharacle, although most
of the group had come from Salen, and we drove back and set
off from the Salen Car Park. The explorers were carefully
shepherded across the road and we set off into the wood to
look at the small lochan. I explained that there was a history
of a magical horse in this pool which was said to have carried
off two local children – a tale treated by the explorers
with considerable scepticism.
Climbing to the top of the wood, we all took a breather in
the Wood School, a place which all the children already knew
well. Then we passed the compost centre and assembled to get
everyone across the road again. The next part was through
the bushes and I rather feared we would have trouble with
brambles, but it was not bad at all and we all arrived together
at the cairn and looked into the open grave. There was some
disappointment in not finding a body in it, but I explained
the body had been removed in 1897 and was probably a bunch
of bones in a cardboard box somewhere ever since. Then we
scrambled back to the road and walked back to the corner on
the wide grass verge.
There were three things to see at the corner: the milepost
made in Blaydon, the Eucalyptus tree and a standing stone
near the wall, none of which detained us long before Rocky
led us on familiar territory round to the back of the hotel.
We sneaked in to a garden at the back in order to examine
a lovely iron gate, possibly made by Calum MacPherson, the
Salen smith, and the building which was probably once a stable
and garage for a carriage belonging to the hotel.
We carried on down the hill passing a building which used
to be the police station and the site of the old smithy. Then
we went up the side road to look at Skipper’s Cottage
and the site of the cattle sales. Returning to the main road,
we slowly passed through the village looking at the various
old buildings, paying particular attention to the hall and
the sites of the WW2 military camp. We stopped for our wafer
break at the old viewing point, where the old school bench
has almost rotted away, before going to look at the steamer
pier where the ships from Glasgow would call twice a week.
By the time we reached the end of the village, the sun was
out and it took us far less time to come back, calling at
the jetty and the Lord Provost’s lamp post on the way.
This time everyone got to the Blue Parrot and they all made
drawings, it was a hard choice but I picked out Calum’s
composite view of the morning: in the middle are his hands
holding a half-brick he found with the word LOCH on it and
at the side are views of Billy’s lobster creels, a yacht
and a buoy with a cormorant sitting on it.
John Dye
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