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Once again we didn't get a sunny day but the rains stayed
off and hardly anyone got wet. Another good turnout of young
explorers: Alexander, Archie, Fern, JJ, Josephine, Parker,
Roslyn, Roscoe, Rowan, Serena and Zack, eight adults: Andrea,
Joanne, John B, Kathryn B, Liz D, Mairi, Simon and Sharon,
plus two dogs: Fizz and Tigger.
We took a little time to get organised and move everyone to
park at the White Gate, and then we took more time to get
everyone out and ready for the road and pointing in the right
direction, but finally we were off and stopped first at the
river gauge where the wires detect the water level. I took
the opportunity to explain that the damage to the roadside
walls was the result of the passage of a huge crane which
went to Dorlin in 1984 in order to suspend a young actress
called Helen Slater in the air as Supergirl.
Next we visited the spring known as Tobar Creagan Earraich,
which was excavated and restored in 1998 by a group of Acharacle
schoolchildren. I explained how people had been throwing money
in, which might have brought them luck, but was poisoning
the stream life, silver coins would be all right but copper
coins are toxic. The explorers then got down to removing all
the copper coins for transfer to the charity box later (I
think).
We returned to the road and then had a very uncomfortable
scramble past the brambles to get into the old quarry. This
was opened by Paddy Heron during the war to produce stone
for upgrading the Dorlin Road when they were building the
navy base there. I pointed out that it was a high, narrow
and very dangerous place, at which point the explorers clambered
onto the slippery and unstable boulders. I got a quick picture
before they all came back, miraculously unscathed.
The last part of the expedition was a walk along the river
to Dorlin, with sticks being thrown and various items of interest
being examined on the way. One item which caused a lot of
comment was an animal skeleton complete with a skull and strange
horns, which JJ identified as a giraffe, the horns certainly
looked like that.
We walked into Dorlin and looked at the buildings and the
ice pool but by then the smaller explorers were looking a
bit tired so we turned and came back to the cars.
Everyone turned out a drawing but once again I had to use
Parker's: on the left you can see Tigger splashing in the
water to get a stick. Then there is Parker himself thinking
of Zack who is holding a bag of coins from the well, next
is Roscoe in his Owl hat and finally me thinking about the
giraffe skull.
Finally, I had to make a presentation of an O/S Map - we were
at 1989 attendances at the beginning of this expedition and
it all came down to who was last out of the last car, and
the 2000th attender turned out to be Fern, but she and Rowan
will share the use of the map.
John Dye
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