Difference between revisions of "2022-06-28 57 -2"

Latest revision as of 12:42, 29 June 2022

Location

Close to a footpath in the Gight Woods nature reserve.

Participants

Macronencer

Plans

This is fairly close to me so looks worth a shot this evening!

Expedition

Macronencer’s journey

When I looked at this location I was taken by surprise. I’ve lived in Aberdeenshire for seven months now, and had no idea that one of the few remaining pieces of ancient woodland in the county lay just a few miles away from me. It looked idyllic in the photographs, so I planned a trip. I was especially pleased that this was happening on my Hashiversary date, 13 years after my first geohash (wow, it’s been a while!). I didn’t yet have a Hashiversary achievement, so that was nice. The access looked OK to me at the time: the hash was near a path that led from a bridge over the river.

After work, I checked the weather. It looked as if it would get worse in an hour or two, so I thought I’d better go immediately. I drove to the public car park, and had a nice walk down through woods and over a little bridge (not the bridge mentioned above, though). I was wearing wellies… which probably wasn’t the best idea, but my walking boots still have mildew on them and I need to clean them up. I’d underestimated the distances involved, and wellies hurt my toes when I walk downhill – probably because I have very long toes. Very long toes would be great if I could swing from trees or something, but that particular superpower seems to have eluded me.

I reached a gate, and spotted cattle in the field around Gight Castle. I didn’t see any calves, but I thought I should give them a wide berth so as not to worry them. As a result, I never went near the river.

At the end of the area of grassland there was a fence, and a few gates that led only into jungle territory with impassable vegetation. Looking at the Ordnance Survey maps, I do believe at least one of those gates was supposed to be for the public footpath – but the state of the undergrowth was too much for me as I had no machete (or bulldozer).

Checking the weather app, I saw that rain was due in about twenty minutes, and I had things to do at home. Reluctantly, I decided to abort the trip and log a CNR.

In hindsight, I might have been able to cross the river if I’d gone farther out of my way by turning left when I got near the river so that I could backtrack to where there seems to be a bridge. I’m going to have to come back and check one day, to see whether I could have reached the co-ordinates after all with more time! I’ll certainly be bringing my camera if I do that, as the place is really beautiful and I’m keen to try and get a photo of something interesting (such as a red squirrel).