Expedition 360, to the Big Cave 20/8/16

 

A bit of a catch-up, we were completing the expedition we started two weeks before. The forecast was a bit iffy - they thought it might rain but I expected it to be dry. What I didn't expect was a rather warm day, but that hasn't happened often this summer and we weren't complaining. We didn't have so many this time: just Alexander and JJ as explorers with John B, Mairi and Phil as helpers, plus Brambles and Monte as pathfinders and expert noses.
It took us a long while to get to the Whale Skull and then we set off along the shore, past a succession of roofless but very well-built houses. Smirisary must have been a big community at one stage. A problem I had forgotten about was the bracken - it was above my head in places and there were times when it was difficult to follow the path, but we had the dogs to help us and we soon reached the cave. I have known this cave for fifty years but it isn't much visited since it is well back from the shore.
I had one good torch and one feeble one, so the explorers took the good one and made a full examination of the cave. It is big and dry and, apart from one bit near the entrance, high enough to stand in comfortably. We all had a good look round but we didn't find any cave spiders with black and red legs this time.
When we got out we started off on the coast path again, but Mairi saw another cave close by and this turned out to be even better: it was a tunnel which came out higher on the hill with a good view of the collection of old houses. A long time was spent examining it.
We set off again, but, again, I took the wrong route and Mairi put me right and we were soon back on the well-made coastal path. I have been told that the two MacDougall brothers of Egnaig originally maintained the path but they died years ago and bits of it are now rather tricky. Eventually we got to the next settlement of Polldhu, where a group of sheep were clearly rather annoyed at having their quiet Saturday morning disturbed. We settled down on the warm rocks near the shore and had our Tunnock's Wafers while the sheep scowled at us.
After our break, we made our way carefully across the stony beach and the burn and finally followed the path through a gap in the cliff. We then reached a point where half of a previous expedition had taken a wrong turn so I was careful to get everyone together before we turned right and fought our way through the bushes and bracken to reach the path up the ravine.
Some parts of this route are really beautiful and it deserves to be better known, but the problem has always been at the top where crossing the burn is rather tricky. This time we managed to get past the old house, which was once the home of a champion piper but is now a sheep dipping and clipping hut. Once everyone was safely past, it was just a short climb to the gate and the car park before the drive back to Acharacle.
JJ and John were busy so we were a small group in the Tearoom, which was rather quiet, and Alexander didn't feel inspired to complete a drawing, so we just have the photo, and even that was not as crisp as usual.

John Dye


 

 







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