Once again, the expedition coincided with a major event,
the Book Festival at Strontian, so some explorers were eager
to get away, at least we were on the way to Strontian anyway.
We had nine explorers: Alexander, Archie, Calum, Roslyn, Maighsi,
Parker, Roanna, Roscoe and Zack with five helpers, Alasdair,
Liz, Mairi, Shona and Simon and three expedition dogs Fizz,
Flecks and Hamish, who all found items of great interest they
couldn't explain to us.
The weather was nice but we were under the trees and I waited
too long to get a picture with a view and then forgot to take
it. We all parked at Ann Henderson's and walked very carefully
up the main road to the start of the Ardery brae. I pointed
out a group of ruined buildings in the woods near the road
junction which seem to have no name and appear on no maps.
The track to Ardery is stony but at least traffic-free and
the explorers set off at a good pace and had to be called
back regularly when our route took us into the woods.
The first diversion was halfway up the hill and it was a bit
awkward getting through some fallen branches to reach the
old pollard tree. The tree is another which has fallen since
I first saw it in the survey of 2000, but the cultivation
terraces, the old houses and the remains of the turf house
were all just as clear as ever. We found a tree with a strange
black fungus, I later found it was called Bulgaria, just like
the Womble.
Then we pushed on up the path for a long way, turning off
by the wreck of an old lorry and moving up into the highest
part of the woods. We found a nice place for our Tunnock's
wafers and spent some time wandering among the trees on nice
grassy slopes. There were lots of badger paths there and we
could seen many places where badgers had been scratching up
the grass for worms.
Finally we went back down the path, making a diversion to
look at another old oak pollard, which had been hollow but
had lost half its trunk. Next to the tree was a pit where
gravel had been dug out and this proved to be a great attraction
to the dogs, and two of the explorers came within a whisker
of falling in.
It was quite a long way back so we didn't go to the high platform
but returned along the track and back to the Blue Parrot.
Not everyone was able to stay at that time and I have picked
out Parker's picture sent in later, showing the gravel pit
with the dog and an explorer falling from a tree near the
edge, plus me with my stick.
John
Dye
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