A trip down memory lane

Secret Scotland - Pitreavie

Apart from the Mega Event, this was the only cache on "my must do list" whilst up in sunny Scotland. Why....Well back in the early nineties in my first career I was based at Pitreavie Castle. I have many many good memories of the 18 months that I was posted in this area and wanted to see what they had done to the place. My friend lived in the area for many years and had told me that Sky had built its headquarters there and that they had turned the rest into a housing estate once the base closed in 1996.

The cache site gave me quite a bit of information that either I didn't actually know or had completely forgotten about. If my memory serves me right  the cache isn't  located where the "Pit head" used to be but at one of the other shafts. I remember the pit head being just to the side and behind the "Castle". In front of that was the mess hall where we used to go for our scran (as the matelots called it) after trooping up all the stairs from the depths below. Often I remember going down first thing in the morning to start a shift in the dark and not come up again until it was evening and dark again. In the winter we often felt like moles as it would be days on end before we had the chance to go into proper sunlight. Might explain why I'm still not much of a sun worshipper.

I am happy to say though that the "castle" is still there albeit in the form of flats now. I'll bet there are nice carpets on the stairs to the attic and the walls are painted other colours than magnolia and that really grotty light blue which seemed to adorn most of the walls in the RAF. Our admin bods were based right up in the attic so after climbing all the stairs to the pit head, it didnt stop there. Who needed extra PT when you had all those stairs to climb, it was enough to keep you in the peak of fitness.

Pitreavie Castle

It was also nice to see that they had left the base of the flag pole in place. You can find this if you cross the road from the front of the castle.

Although it was a bit sad to see what they had done to the place and wiped out pretty much anything that you could have recognised of the place, it was really nice to go back again.

Pithead Site

We were accommodated across the Forth at RAF Turnhouse so continuing with our journey south, I just had to take a drive to see what had happened to that place. I was so disappointed when I arrived as the accommodation area - which housed the barrack blocks, mess hall and NAAFI bar and shop, had been bulldozed with most of the rubble still in piles and a huge wire fence around it. It seems like its been earmarked for development of business premises, I suppose ideal as its located near to the cargo area for Edinburgh Airport.

Accommodation Site

Across the road however are still the main gates which now has a commemarative plaque to all who served at Turnhouse over the years. In place is the guardroom on the right and on the left is the Admin offices.

Commerative Plaque

All that has really gone has been the picket posts on both sides of the road. Now that does make me giggle at the memories of guard duties on nights. We had to leg it across the road when a car came to go into the accommodation site, now me only being a slight little thing couldn't just push the gate post down, I literally had to jump and lie on the thing to get the gate lifted. Many many people used to take the mickey out of me for that one. We also used to carry round broom handles...can you just imagine the guards shouting...."Stop, or I'll whack you round the head with my broom"...I dont think so, they were having a laugh!!!!!

The old guardroom

Many many a good night was spent in the NAAFI bar and bop and I really cannot imagine just how I managed to get up after a skin full the night before and get into work..I certainly couldnt do it now.

Snowdon Summit

Well folks, the time has come again to post another blog. After a very busy couple of weeks I have so much to blog about having been to some really amazing places.

On the spur of the moment we had decided to get the tent out of the loft and take all of the kids camping for a couple of days seeing it was the start of the school summer holidays. It was a mad dash around the house making sure we had got everything we would need for a couple of days before checking on the internet where to go. I had been wanting to walk up Snowdon again for what has seemed like ages and had been telling the girls that they needed to get themselves walking fit for the climb.

We arrived in Llanberis on a glorious sunny morning, pitched the tent, donned shorts and walking boots and went for an easy bimble into the village. The summit stayed out of sight until the early evening when the cloud finally lifted and the kids could all see how far they had to walk the next day. Rather than putting them off, they were more excited than ever....little did they know how tough it was going to be for them.

We set off the next day round about lunch time with rucksacks packed full of food, water and warm clothing. It always amazes me how many people go walking to places like this unprepared, and judging by the amount of times we saw the rescue helicopter flying above, there were people who still hadnt learnt their lessons.

The climb was fairly uneventful and very busy on the trail. The first half of the walk was fairly easy and all of the kids were still in good spirits until about a mile after Halfway House when the path became incredibly steep.

By this time we had been walking for around 3 hours and all of the kids really struggled at some time within this, but with plenty of words of encouragement they pushed on through it, determined to make the summit, after all thats what they were there to do.

We climbed through the cloud base and went higher and higher until finally I was able to say that we made it. Extra clothing was put on as it was absolutely freezing cold. I just couldnt believe that some people were up there in shorts but I supposed they had gone up on the train and thats exactly the way they were going to get back down.

We took the obligatory picture at the trig so that we could log the Virtual Cache there and took the details of the trig to log on trigpointing before grabbing the most expensive cup of coffee we had ever had from the local cafe. I couldnt believe that there were no cold water taps in the toilets so had to ask for some cold water for the dog (which they were loathe to give us).

Poor little Sprocket, even with all of his fur was shivering cold up there so lay on the rucksacks and had his Mummy's coat wrapped snugly around him (poor baby)

Return Journey - no easy way down for us...it was all by foot again except this time it was so much easier. It had been such a shame that the cloud was so low however on the way back the clouds briefly moved, brilliant sunshine shone down on us and gave us the most spectacular views. The kids were absolutely amazed and all 4 of them shouted "wow look at that" all at the same time. Just those few seconds made the whole experience worth it.

We finally made it back to the campsite after being on foot for nearly 9 hours. The kids were so proud of themselves for getting to the top and back, a feat that not many of their age can say that they have achieved. Yes they struggled at times, but rather than give up and turn back, they pushed through it and gave it their best shot. Even more amazing was the amount of energy they still had when they got back. Unbelievable.

So, what next.....we have warned them off that Scarfell Pike is next on the to do list and then Ben Nevis. Surprisingly, they were well up for it.....MAD!!!