Sep 23rd, 2014

Author: donich_admin

Aigas – Day 4

This was our ‘rest day’ so not so much happened today – thank goodness as we have had so much on that I was starting to think I would need another holiday when we get home.
Got up at 6:30 on my own this time to have yet another crack at seeing a beaver. It was a lovely morning with the dawn just breaking, and as I walked past the loch the dawn chorus was in full spate.

I had been going to go in to the beaver hide, but getting close to it I noticed that there were people already in there, and as I didn’t want to disturb them, I walked up to the flat top rock instead, and stood up there for ten minutes or so, watching one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.

We had been told that there were ‘workshops’ in the morning and R had cried off because I think he imagined something PowerPoint related. When he discovered it was pond dipping, he changed his mind, and we spent a happy hour looking at dragonfly larvae and caddis flies (it all rather reminded me of ‘The Water Babies’ – a really strange book which I enjoyed as a child without understanding at all).
We then went for a walk through an old oak woodland to see a badger sett. On the way back I am ashamed to admit that I was too busy talking about cats with one of our party to notice a sheep stranded on its back – which some of the others saw and helped to its feet. In the afternoon, R and I walked up to the Iron Age fort at the top of the estate. The views over the area were quite sensational.

We had intended to walk further up into the hills, but it was terribly wet and marshy with no real path so we abandoned the attempt. On the way back down we saw a lovely big hairy caterpillar, some beautiful iridescent beetles, and a small brown toad no bigger than my thumb nail who wasn’t prepared to hang around to have his picture taken.

We then just chilled out until dinner which was tomato soup, roast pork with potatoes dauphinoise and butterscotch ice cream. By then it had started to pour with rain (first time this week), so after an abortive attempt to do a night walk where all the wildlife had decided to take shelter and go to sleep, we decided to join them in an early night.