Wednesday 28 May 2014

A cache in remembrance of Shorty Dog

Today is two years since we put our little dog to sleep. We still think about her and talk about her and miss her, and so we decided it would be nice to do something to mark the occasion, and so with our new hobby taking off we decided to place a cache in one of her favourite places.


We have always lived in Ayrshire, she has had some wonderful places to live, between living either end of Lanfine Estate that runs from Darvel to Newmilns for a number if years. Where she played in the river, chased squirrels to the ends of the earth just about and ignoring us when we shouted her to come back, the attraction was just to great. She loved places like this where there was maybe one car a day on the road and she could run free.

She also loved Auchincruive Estate but there are a lot of caches already there and so much of the area she liked to play in is no longer easily accessible since the estate was bought over and fences were built across the paths and walkways.

We looked into Loudoun Kirk at Galston as she chased rabbits here, but you are not allowed to place them in churchyards or too near other existing cache so that ruled out here.

We toyed with the farm where she spent six very very happy years, but its private ground with animals on and nowhere safe to stop on the road.

The other place she loved was the beach at Greenan, not the cleanest beach, quite rocky with little pleasant sand in comparison to round the coast in either direction which was cleaner and sandier. This bit was ideal for a dog. We would walk along the shore turning over rocks looking for crabs that would nip your nose and wee fish that you would eat. At low tide we went out to the pipe and OH would pull mussels off for you and open them with a pen knife, how you would woof and woof impatiently.

We had you up the top to the castle, safely on your lead, and across the field full of rabbits that got chased. This was a happy place for you, full of memories for us.

So we decided that Greenan Shore was the place to pop your cache. We went along last week and looked at possible sites for the cache. There are strict rules and regulations where a cache can go. We knew it could not go on the beach itself, it is a SSSI. We knew it could not be in the castle as this is a listed monument.

The spot we originally chose was too near the castle boundary and could not be approved, so we found another spot nearby and placed it there.

where we were going to place it




from near the cache 16 decisions on the South Ayr loop 

Greenan Castle from the cache

from the main car park, not accessible from here at high tide 

the view from the edge of the castle

Please note this is not a safe place to be, no fence to stop you falling over so if going up please keep dogs on the lead and children under control.

looking towards the cache called Deil's dyke at low tide

a panoramic over a misty Arran taken from the cache
We were laughing yesterday as we walked back along the beach. A women was out with a few dogs, a lab for whom she was throwing stones in the water, and a wee terrier. As she threw the stones the lab was running into the water to retrieve them and the terrier was at her feet barking, just as Shorty use to do. 

This cache has already been found once by a fellow dog walker. Happy memories for us indeed. Next cache we place will be in the Lanfine Estate area.

Was a great learning curve learning the rules and regulations on where cache's can be placed.

2 comments:

  1. Great to move on to the next stage of placing them yourself :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love this! What a sweet way to remember Shorty Dog!! :) Can;t believe it's been two years already- sweet, sweet pooch!

    ReplyDelete

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