| Wednesday 12th October 2005 | Alladale Wilderness Reserve |
Day 4 - my knee appears to be on the mend. At least I can walk and it is not bothering me too much, but maybe that is me just getting used to it. The only real issue seems to be when going uphill or if I twist and then try and move on it, so need to be a little careful.
I was not sure what the plan of events was for today, but when I got up it was raining, so I did not take my camera - hence there are no photos for today. I am really sorry for this, especially as the day was not too bad with only a few showers and we did a lot of different things today including river survey and fence removal which would have been nice to get some pics of.
How did the day start? Well I awoke about four times in the night needing the go to the bathroom, but decided it was too cold to get out of bed. At 6:15 I decided I could wait no more and did a dash, got back to bed and took about 5 mins to warm back up before going back to sleep again until about 7:15.
At 7:15 I heard other people starting to move around so I thought I would make a move and get up. All I needed to do was put on my long sleeved t-shirt, my trousers and two pairs of socks - one thin, one thick - I then set about making breakfast. Today I tried porridge with Marmite, I advise you not to, it was not particularly good, but adding sugar did help! Tomorrow Michael has stated he would like porridge too, so need to make it for two.
I asked Chris what was available for lunch, i.e. was there an alternative to just cheese and he suggested I may like to cook up some sausages - this I did with great gusto! So for my packed lunch I put in an orange, a Mars bar, a cheese and sausage sarnie and an egg and cheese sarnie. All where very tasty when the time came to eat them!
We left Deanich Lodge at the usual time of around 8:00 and headed up to Alladale. En route we saw lots of deer, stags and hinds, but unfortunately I did not have my camera with me. When we arrived at the Lodge we went into the conference room - the main Lodge at Alladale is designed with coroprate use in mind and as such houses a meeting room which will sit about 16 round tables, or more if you seat theatre style. Whilst we waited for Chris to come and tell us what we were going to do for the day we carried on with a little bit of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) that we had been doing on Tuesday.
When Chris returned he brought the news that we would not be going up on the hill today which I was glad and sad about - I wanted to go and drag a stag back, but also was glad of not having to put my knee to such hard use. What we would be doing was surveying the river, then potentially vegetation survey.
Firstly though we had some more discussion about the EIA and the importance of baseline information so that you could see what changes had occured by the changes you make. It also enables you to check you have a suitable environment in the first time for what you are aiming to achieve.
Originally the planned test release for the Elk, Red Deer, Roe Deer and boar was planned to be 700 acres on a site behind the lodge (this was one of three possible locations). However, due to the lack of a suitable water source all year round (the one there was could potentially freeze over) and other factors it was suggested this area should be almost doubled. For the study in such an early stage this was not really all that practical, so the 700 acres was increased to an area that would include the river, to offer a better water source and also more of the flood plain environment that the animals favour.
With the Elk especially it is important to ensure a good source of water as they like to spend a lot of time in it. In the first phase of the project it is the Elk who are offering the most hurdles to overcome - the main one is that the most likely source for the Elk will be Scandinavia whereas the boar can be found in the UK and the Roe deer can be found a few glens away.
For the days activities we had to take the following kit;
After a short 4x4 ride out from the back of the lodge we pulled up and walked down to the river. It then became evident that it was unlikely that we would be able to do all that Chris had planned. Due to the rainfall of the last few days the river was much higher and faster flowing than anticipated.
We walked up river a bit to where it was more meandering and not quite so fast flowing. Chris and I donned waders and stepped into the river, almost falling over, but not quite. Firstly we tested the depth with lovely red and white poles (sorry there are no pics :0) then he used the flow meter, which is an impeller on a plastic rod and a device at the end which counts the number of rotations in a minute. The tests we did on flow varied widely from only 30 revolutions per minute in the shallows to over 2200 a third of the way into the river.
In total we tested the river in about 5 locations and did 2 flow tests in each location. At the location we also took a GPS reading, tested the water quality and depth and flow at a distance from the bank.
We did this until about 13:00, then went back up to the main lodge to go and eat our lunch in the warm and dry as it had been trying to rain again.
The afternoon saw a change in plans. Rather than doing vegetation surveys the idea was to do some fence removal. Chris had previously started work on removing some of the fencing and we were to continue with doing that. After a false start as we were unable to find a pair of cutters that we were looking for we headed out. Pulling out the 'chicken wire' was harder than it may sound. Because it has been there for so long (the fence poles have lichen growing on them!) it was very matted into the undergrowth, heather and trees and had been dug into the ground originally too which made it a little harder. However we soildured on and managed to remove a goodly amount of the wire into piles to be collected at a later date.
We finished that at about 16:30 and headed back home to Deanich. When we arrived back I set the fire in the lounge going and then got the fire in the boiler going so that there would be hot water for baths. Whilst I was doing this Chris and Michael cooked dinner for us - Pizza, Burgers, chips and beans - haute cuisine extraordinaire! To be honest it was fantastic, very filling and satisfying.
After dinner time for a bath, sit down and do these notes, call home, watch a movie ('Firefly') then off to bed to see what tomorrow will bring, as long as I can get a decent nights sleep with the cold and the half dozen stags roaring on the hills around us.