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Just as the last expedition was appalling weather, this one
couldn't have been better. Possibly that attracted people
out to other events since we only got three explorers: Alexander,
JJ and Lexi who became the fiftieth explorer to complete twenty
expeditions (Alexander and JJ have both clocked up over 50).
We had Fiona and Mairi to help and no dogs this time.
This was an extended expedition, covering four different destinations,
the first was a strange mine on the shore of Loch Sunart,
at the bottom of the oak woods. We parked at the forestry
turn-off and followed a badger track down the hill. The badger
path was a good choice since it led us directly to the old
magazine. This is a small stone building hidden in a ravine;
although it still has a good tin roof and some of its internal
woodwork, it was built over a stream so the floor inside is
always soaking wet. I have been told it was built to hold
explosives while the nearby mine was working, and that a man
was killed there by an explosion in the 1940s, but I have
never seen anything written about the place.
We stopped for some photographs and then made our way along
the shore over some very difficult ground until we reached
the mine, which is really an excavation into the face of the
hill. In front of the pit there is a large heap of white rocks,
representing spoil discarded during the excavation, in fact
the quantity of spoil indicates that very little other material
could have been taken away, could it have been mica? W spent
quite a time looking at the area, and finding some pine marten
droppings with small bones in them, then we climbed back to
the road and the cars.
Our next stop was at the house at Woodend, once occupied by
two brothers, we crossed the road and had a look at the croft,
particularly the old byre, which contained a lot of bottles
(mostly recent) and the remains of two old boots. We returned
to the house and made a short detour along the wood to a big
tree to see the biggest Ivy plant in the area, so big that
it has pulled down one of the branches of the tree. Under
the tree were some owl pellets and the owl was probably above
us in the tree but we couldn't see it among the ivy leaves.
We returned to the old croft for our Tunnock's Wafers and
then, charged up with energy, we drove to Strontian and parked
at the Ariundle car park.
We walked back down the road, stopping to look at the tree
which had footrests fixed to it to make it easy to climb,
although the footrests have almost been absorbed into the
trunk now. We continued until we found the turning to reach
the river, and I was pleased to see that the water level was
much lower than last time we came. This meant we could all
wade across dry-shod (except for one leaky wellie) to the
island and look for interesting things in the gravel. We found
the remains of several bottles which could have been 300 years
old, and also fragments of old plates and dishes. I found
the bottom of a stoneware jar in the river which had about
a dozen small leeches hanging on to it.
Finally we walked back to the Ariundle Centre for our lunches,
with surplus explorer energy being expended upon the swing.
All of the explorers turned out drawings and I have picked
out Alexander's excellent view of the Old Magazine.
John
Dye
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