Turbines.
Bristol Beaufighter NE813 on Wester Dodd
(Bristol Blenheim
L8613 Aikengall
)
(Distance covered =
6.2 mile/Ascent =+230m)
My last walk of 2022, although the weather forecast was good it was November and and very cold, so I opted for a walk that was 99% along windfarm roads and on a relatively low lying hill in the hope of avoiding any snow.
The crashsites I'd chosen to go and look for were on some high ground not too far up the A1 in the hills between Berwick and Edinburgh and because there was a memorial onsite at one of them I was pretty confident that I wasn't going to finish the year with an FTF.
The shitroen parked at the start of my walk
in the middle of the Aikengall Wind Farm, south of Dunbar.
As I would be following windfarm access roads all the way to the crashsites, once I'd parked the car beside a narrow public road in the middle of said windfarm, the hardest navigation of the day was done. Indeed before I arrived at this point I had taken a couple of wrong turns and in one instance I had driven up a windfarm access road by mistake which almost culminated in my planned 10 mile of walking becoming 10 mile of driving.
above and next 3 photos:-Making my way (on foot) through Aikengall Windfarm.
Of the two crashsites on my itinerary I opted to go and visit the Beaufighter first as this is where the memorial was located and I also knew a member of ACIA had found pieces there as well. The memorial turned out to be very easy to find, the pieces of Beaufighter not so much.
above and next 4 photos.:-Impossible to get a photo without a wind turbine in it here.
above and below:-The memorial, placed on the edge of an access road overlooking the crashsite.
I spent way too much time searching around in the heather for any bits of Beaufighter still on site, I even contacted the member of ACIA who had originally located the crashsite here, but despite him giving me precise directions to where he located the bits I still managed to find absolutely nothing. Perhaps I should have waited until after christmas to visit this one as I received a metal detector for a christmas present which would have helped immensely in locating any pieces that may have been hidden in the heather.
The area where Beaufighter NE813 crashed,
deep heather prevented me from finding anything.
A helpfull sign in case I didn't know the way back.
Wind turbines everywhere.
As I'd spent so much time hunting around for bits of Beaufighter in the heather by the time I walked back through the windfarm I only had a couple of hours of daylaight left, so bearing in mind all the time I had just spent scratching around in knee deep heather I decided to leave the Blenheim site for another day; perhaps another day when I would be better equiped to find something.
above and below:-The area where Bristol Blenheim L8613 crashed.
Even pointing the camera straight up I still failed to get a photo without a windturbine in it!
Above and below:- More wind turbines.
The customary "Always a welcome sight no matter how enjoyable the walk" photo even has wind turbines in it!
