It was quite like old times to see everyone assembling at
the church triangle again, when I arrived there were already
quite a few cars and several young explorers racing around
the trees. By 9.30 we had assembled nine explorers, Alexander,
Calum, Fern, Josephine, Parker, Roslin, Robbie, Rowan and
Serena, nine adults, Alastair, David, Howard, Joanne, John
Dove, Mairi, Pamela, Sharon, Simon, and two dogs, Ellie and
Fizz.
My leg still wasn't up to tackling the high hills so this
time we kept to low, mostly level ground. We started off up
the Kentra road where I told everyone about Queen's Cottage
and the time when Charlie Pacey pretended to be a gnome fishing
in the garden pool, and also about the heap of oyster shells
found under a local shed, remains of the meals of some very
ancient inhabitants.
Further up the road we came to the lochan, which was the first
of the glacial features of the day, and a little further on,
a tiny but very old pine tree struggling to survive on a patch
of boggy ground. Beyond this, everyone looked at the ridge
across the moss, representing the edge of an ice sheet which
once dammed this end of Loch Shiel.
There was then a rather dangerous walk along the public road
across the moss. Everyone saw the drainage channels across
the moss and I explained how a man had run a peat-cutting
machine in that area many years ago, but it turned out too
rainy for him to make a success of the venture. Near the Arivegaig
road end we looked at a rounded rock outcrop bearing the scrape
marks or striae, from the glacier which ground them into the
rock.
We had become rather dispersed at this stage and everyone
gathered again on the track opposite the Arivegaig turn-off.
I pointed out the quarry which had been used to produce material
for Shielbridge House and the iron box which had once been
a magazine for explosives. We continued down the track towards
Shielbridge that had once been the route of a short railway
which carried stone for the building.
Fortunately John Dove had been along the path with his secateurs
so we were able to get through the rhoddies without too much
trouble, but the ground was very soggy in parts. Eventually
we all emerged onto level dry ground behind Shielbridge House
where the explorers saw where the power station used to be
and looked at the finials on the shed which could once have
been on David MacBrayne's Hotel.
We walked round the house and down the road to the gate of
the big house and I told everyone how I had met the same Charlie
Pacey with a wheelbarrow and rake, clearing leaves by the
gate on his 99th birthday.
We then went up the road towards Acharacle for a little way
and finally turned off onto the route of the old road. Once
again the rhododendrons were pretty overgrown but we all got
through without trouble to reach an open hilly area among
the trees known geologically as the Acharacle Eskers. Eskers
are ridges of gravel produced by rivers flowing under glaciers
and these ones were used by the explorers for a lot of running
about, swinging from a tree and rolling an old tyre, during
which activity, we fitted in our rather late Tunnock's wafers.
Continuing along the track we crossed a makeshift bridge made,
I was told, from the doors of the shed which once stood nearby
and was used by Johnny Gorten as an office. A little further
on was an old house, once the home of the MacIntyre family,
one of whom got a mention in the Acharacle School records
over a hundred years ago. A few yards further there was a
field containing a rather bemused pony and all the young explorers
climbed on the gate trying to make its acquaintance, but it
turned out to be rather shy. My camera failed but David got
a nice picture of this.
This brought us back to the road and our return, after a long
gap, to the Blue Parrot, where everyone got down to some serious
drawing. There was no general consensus on the high point
of the expedition and I have picked out Parker's inspired
portrayal of his friend Alexander walking through the tangled
rhododendrons.
John Dye
|
|