Saturday 23 October 2010

Day Trips

Blogblogblog…

It was quite a while ago I wrote on this blog. It was quite a while ago anyone wrote on this blog. Lots have happened. The first chapter will be called

The day we went on a dear hunt


One day, we went on a dear hunt. Actually, it was a dear rut. I am not exactly sure what a ’rut’ is. I asked one of the rangers that was leading the way. He explained it to me, and I answered: ”ahh, ok… I see”, but I didn’t. It has something to do with the dear mating season. But we were told that we might see some stags fighting, and that was enough to get me sold.

I’m getting ahead of myself. The day started of with a road trip.
With a tank full of petrol, a bucket full of crisps,a car full of people
and 50’s rock classic blasting from the speakers we started off on the scenic route towards Salen. Possible spotting of eagles, a very exciting jump with the sharan over a bridge, we arrived at the waterfall by the Ulva Ferry just in time for the crisps to be all gone. We climbed trees, and were off again to Calgary Bay and some sort of art-in-nature thingy. It started to rain, we got soaked, we headed of to Dervaig, saw a lighthouse (from very far away), visited a very small bookshop, went to Tobermory, ate fish and chips, and got ready for a dear hunt, I mean rut.


When Cally had finished peeing behind the car, we walk into the wild. The wild in this case was a few minutes walk through a small woodland. Some of us saw a big stag just in front of us, before it ran away. But I think all of us saw a couple of more stags walking around on the surrounding hillsides through binoculars. No fighting though.

Darragh drove us home safely through the dark, and we arrived back at Camas late that night, happy after a very nice day trip. A few days later we were very sad to see our last four volunteers leave us. They have been brilliant and we have all had an excellent season. Darragh, Cally, Rob and Tom, come and visit us! And also Jeayeun, Ros and Rosie, come!

The second chapter is called

The day we went to a
Lighthouse

One day, we went to a light house. Not any old light house, we went to Ardnamurchen lighthouse. For those who don’t know: Ardnamurchen lighthouse was build out of granite from the Camas quarry. Needless to say: We were all very excited.

We went on the ferry from Tobermory to Kilchoan. It was a very exciting ferry ride. According to one of my colleagues, the ferryman was pretty hot. But that wasn’t what made the ferry ride exciting. A force 7 wind from west was forecast. And we did feel the waves on the ferry. It was rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. If you stand on one side, for example, the left side. And you jump just when the ferry is starting to rock to the left, it is quite scary. It feels like you are jumping very high.

We were jumping for thirty minutes.

When we got to the light house, we got to go all the way to the top. We stood in the little glass room where the light is! How exciting! Some facts about Ardnamuchen lighthouse:
- It was built in 1849 and designed by Alan Stevenson.
- It stands 36 meters tall on the most westerly point of the british mainland.
- It has two light flashes, flashing every 20 seconds.

After leaving the light house, we had lunch and went to a wild life center thing. There we crawled though a fake wildcat tunnel, looked at birds, drank tea and got bitten by a plastic shark.

All in all a very good day!

The next chapter is very short.

A very short Chapter

We are now trying to fill our 2011 season. It is looking good so far, but we still have weeks we want to fill. If you are someone, or know someone, who might like to bring a group to Camas, get in touch!
If you would like to volunteer at Camas, get in touch!
If you are interested in the program worker job at Camas, get in touch!

The end.

Thursday 14 October 2010

Vacancy.....

Oh I forgot to mention - we are looking for a new programme worker to join the team next spring, if you are interested go to the iona website http://www.iona.org.uk/ and follow the links to staff vacancies.

A weekend with potential new members.....

Sorry this is a bit late our Becky did write a wonderful piece but we managed to loose it! So here is my account of when P Mac brought 7 fun folk to come and experience Camas and think about joining up to the Iona Community...

We started the weekend off with a lovely meal and welcomes on the Friday night (with some extra visitors in the form of my cousin, her hubby and their gorgeous little baby Flynn!) followed by hot chocolates and an early night in preparation for the day ahead.

Saturday was lovely, windy but glorious sunshine, so everyone headed off for a days walk on Erriad, it was beautiful -they had an otter sighting, and one of the guys even went swimming - brrrr!

Sunday was a lovely day, it started well with the announcement of an engagement - congratulations you guys! Followed by discussions, and then an evening of fun in the form of Mafia!

A short but very very sweet weekend, it was a lovely way to have our final bit of time with the volunteers....

Good conversation, fun and a constructive weekend, we hope to see everyone back next year on the new members programme!