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We're getting to the busy time of year now and I missed one
outing when everyone was occupied with other events. This
time we had three explorers: Parker, Roscoe and Clara (rhymes
with tiara rather than fairer). Clara is a quite remarkable
young lady, destined to amaze us all in the future; she is
very keen on tidiness and spent some time at the Triangle
picking up twigs, Roscoe drew her carrying the twigs.
We started the expedition from the wee cairn marking the end
of the track, there were cars parked at the tramp's cave so
we missed it this time. Clara rode in a back pack on the steep
bits (she is still a bit short of two years old), but the
rest of us made good speed up to the start of the old drove
road.
Once on the track there were lots of things to see, many of
them were ticks, which seemed to take a liking to Roscoe's
fleecy trousers. Apparently there had been talks at school
about the danger from tick bites and much time was spent on
removing the pests. There were lots of insects and slugs on
the path and quite a few spring flowers. We crossed several
burns on clapper bridges and sometimes we got a view of the
road from high up on the hill.
We climbed up the Devil's Staircase, which used to be a section
of the International Six Day Trial until the riders and bikes
got too clever. Among the rocks there were a lot of bones
from a red deer that had died last winter.
Eventually we reached the footbridge at the top of the burn
where the trials bikes had driven a week before. The explorers
could see the tyre tracks on the ground and the boys spent
some time in the burn where the riders had walked to examine
the course before riding up it.
I was not sure if we would reach the old fort and we didn't
push on because the boys were due at Mallaig in early afternoon.
We had our wafers at a nice flat part, the weather was mild
and the midges hadn't started yet. I heard a cuckoo but I
don't know if the others heard it.
After the break we went back to the bridge and descended to
the road on the tracks left by the motorbikes. Parker investigated
the culvert under the road and I took an expedition photograph
before we set off along the grass verge back to the car.
The road was fairly busy and Clara walked most of the way
back holding the hands of one or other or both of the boys.
However, she soon noticed that the grass was covered with
mussel shells. These were an interesting feature of the road
at Kinlochmoidart: some years ago the herring gulls had found
they could break mussels open by dropping them on the road
and our tyres have been at risk of punctures ever since. Actually
it's worse now since the hoodie crows have also learned the
trick. The result is a carpet of old mussel shells on the
grass verge, which Clara thought were very untidy and took
a lot of persuading that she could never pick them all up.
When we reached the old stone pier, the boys went down to
look at the 'P' carved into one of the stones, but it is far
too old to refer to Parker.
When we got back to the tearoom, all three explorers spent
time on drawings. I thought I could see a mussel shell in
Clara's picture but it wasn't clear. However Parker and Roscoe
did pictures of the expedition, Parker's showed the view of
the explorers showing flowers, a bridge, insects, a bone and
the road from high up, including the Armco barrier.
John
Dye
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