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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Northumberland Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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| Well, I got to the Colouring Crags long cairn on Tuesday - the hottest day of the year so far. I went by a gentle roundabout route, watched like a hawk by the beat keeper. When I got onto the county border there was the keeper from the Cumbrian shoot - I'm not sure what that shoot's called. I left him, waved - he was half a mile away - and got my pictures of the monument. I took safety shots with my little camera even. It was lunchtime by then and the Knarsdale keeper was out of the picture. I paced the barrow and it is fortyfive metres long. It's oriented to the NNE and the higher side is the eastern. There's no evidence of a forecourt. I came out of there, into sight, and wanted to get some photographs of the roundhouse. But I couldn't find it - I was too far south! I went to a beautiful sheepfold I repaired in 2001, had an orange and reminicised about the person I was involved with then (five planets in Pisces!). Then I got back to basecamp and, after recovery, went to work on my wall - which has just reached its halfway point for the summer. Next day was frantic. First thing in the morning my stores tent was cut. I must have been listening to Today on my Walkman, just heard the keeper's gun not far away. Then when I was about I saw the tent cut. Then through the morning a couple of keepers went through the part of fell that I was searching for the roundhouse in. Then the shoot owner came out for the afternoon, shooting rabbits on his bit of land that I'd crossed the day before. Right To Roam? - it's ok in theory, just don't try it in practice. Then yesterday the owner was out again, in the morning, shooting rabbits, same area, I was capping a 25 metre stretch of wall - tough heavy work needing absolute concentration. I caught sight, or sense, of someone moving near the camp two hundred yards away. Thought nothing of it, got back to the stones. At lunchtime I found my tent inner slashed and my handle sharpening knife stuck out of the wall. Then a couple of blasts of shotgun from nearby. I guess they must have thought I was looking for the carcase of a radio tracked raptor. The Cumbrian keeper had seen me looking and clicking a bike computer - it's my clock. No sign of the keeper since then - it'll have to go to the police - as if there wasn't enough to do already! I've got the cameras out of there. No conventional archaeologist could get near these things. I don't know the name of the shooting owner nor that of the gamekeeper, who seems to be reluctantly following orders. I did pass two of his traps that had prey in that had been looked at for several weeks. They should be inspected daily, in law, and I know that the Wildlife Policeman is uninterested. It's Britain's Last Wilderness!  This topic is locked |  4th July 2008ce 18:24 In reply to: Derrick O'Boills (Stoneshifter) |
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