A few more scraps!.
Avro Lancaster PD259 on Carn Icean Duibhe
(Distance covered =
20.0 mile/Ascent =+1049m)
I'd already visited the Lancaster crashsite on Carn Icean Duibhe*, but on that occasion I had a deadline to meet and had to leave the site knowing there was still a lot more to be found. So I took the opportunity to add the site onto the itinerary for my 2019 walking holiday which we had christened CC19b.
My freind Stuart and his daughter Chloe were coming over from Ireland to join me for CC19b and we had arranged to meet at a nice little cafe at Dalwhinnie for some breakfast. Then we nipped along the road and had a quick look for some remains of Supermarine Spitfire R6886 in Glen Truim.
Glen Truim.
Where we searched, we found nothing on the surface.
It was a bit of a dissapointment starting off CC19b with an ftf (failed to find) but it was a nice little warm up for tackling the long walk in to Carn Icean Duibhe; where we would also be humping our camping gear to spend the night on the mountain.
Back in Strathdearn.
The slog up
onto the baelach
between Carn Mor and Carn Easgainn Mor was even more tortuous this time
because of the added weight of the camping gear.
We took the same route as I did on my previous visit but this time we ditched the bikes a little earlier and walked into Carn Icean Duibhe over the top of Carn na Caillich. We then looked for a reasonably flat area on the south eastern flank of Carn Icean Duibhe to pitch our tents.
above and next two photos:- Our camp site; we found a spot on the other side of the small hill where the crashsite of PD259 is located. We agreed camping at the crashsite would be a little bit too spooky!
After quite a comfortable nights sleep I was awake at 5am, but as it was chucking it down with rain I snoozed in my lovely warm sleeping bag until the rain eased off at 7am. By the time we'd had some breakfast and set off walking over to the remains of PD259 the rain had stopped completely and we now had a whole day to have a good search around for bits.
above and below:-A piece of PD259's nose, the same section is outlined on the photo of an intact Lancaster below.
An engine mounting and an engine shaped hole. One of PD259's Roll Royce Merlin engines was dug up and removed in recent recovery operations.
What I would describe as 'evidence of arsehole'.
Another reason we added another visit to PD259 onto the start of our CC19b itinerary was an email I received from a Kingussie local who had visited the remains of PD259 several times back in the 1980's and early 1990's when he was a teenager; he described to me how himself and a freind had found a gun turret and large amounts of ammunition quite a distance from the main wreckage. They took home as souveniers: a navigator's ruler, part of a parachute with a crew members name on it and several belts of ammunition. We found no remains of a turret or ammunition but this may be because the RAF were notified of it's existance after the local and his freind walked down Kingussie high street wearing the ammuntion belts like two classic mexican bandits.
The Tailfin from PD259, labelled A on the image below.
What we believed was the starboard tailplane,
labelled B on the image above.
Possibly one of the ailerons, labelled C on the image above.
Despite not finding a turret we did discover hundreds of other bits
including several more collections of wreckage and some large and
identifiable pieces.
Still kicking myself that I chose to go and see the
Lancaster on Beinn Eighe instead of this one back in 1996 when myself the
wife and our young son were on holiday at Loch Lochy, I may well have
found the turret back then!
