Is it a Sheep, is it a Moth,
DH Dominie X7400 on Dollar Law.
(Distance covered = 3.5
mile/Ascent =+523m)
A competition for Heather at Selkirk Highland Games mean't I wasn't too far from 4 crashsites I knew about, 1 on Dollar Law ,just south of Peebles and 3 on BroadLaw which is roughly halfway between Selkirk and Moffat.
As I reckoned I'd need more time to go look for the 3 on Broadlaw I decided to leave that one for a later date, when there was a Championships at Lanark. So on this day I went off to look for a Royal Navy DH89 Dominie that crashed on Dollar Law.
The Pug parked below Sting Rig, the route I took went up the road then right after the trees up what seemed like a near vertical grassy slope.
When I dropped the girls off at Selkirk the venue had been moved indoors because of the weather forecast of heavy rain, so I was expecting to encounter some clag, but after parking the car below the curiously named Sting Rig the sun was shining.
At 2680 feet Dollar Law falls 320 feet short of qualifying as a Munro, but from the start right up to the top it is all steeply uphill, especially the first half a mile which seemed near vertical.The first part of the ascent was alongside a burn called 'Ugly Grain' and a little further to the south was a hill called 'Bitches Craig',I wonder if the person who named the features here had anyone in mind!
After the first steep haul out of the valley bottom the slope eased off a bit, but was still steep.
Dollar Law is classed as a Corbett. John Rooke Corbett was one of the first Mountaineers to climb all the Mountains in Scotland higher than 3000ft(Munros), so presumably to give himself something else to do he made a list of all the Mountains less than 3000ft but more than 2500ft(Corbetts).
Instead of heading straight for the grid ref I had for the crashsite, I went to the summit trig point first, then I could take a compass bearing which would put me in the right area.
Another selfie on the summit of Dollar Law, a bit of Corbett Bagging
With an accurate compass bearing from the trig point and because it wasn't too far from the summi,t I walked straight to the crashsite , that's not counting the diversion I made towards what looked like a piece of crumpled alluminium from a distance, but close up turned out to be a large clump of wool off some scanky sheep tangled in the heather . Perhaps I should take my glasses next time!
The crashsite.
The book I have that lists crashsites and their grid refs listed this location as where a DH60 Moth crashed, it listed X7400 as having crashed on Dun Rig, a mile or so to the south west. I found out after I'd visited that the information in the book was incorrect, X7400 crashed here and the DH60 Moth crashed on Broad Law a hill a mile or so further on from Dun Rig.
Pieces of the Dominie, the long metal pieces are the struts from between the lower and upper wings.
Just as I was about to take some photographs at the crashsite the Scottish weather decided it had had enough of being nice to me and I was subjected to some big fat horizontal rain. After waiting for the rain to stop for about 20 minutes I decided I could wait no longer, so I fashioned a waterproof cover for my camera by simply putting it in a plastic bag and making a hole for the lens to peek out,not ideal but it kept most of the rain off.
I set off back to the car a little bit damp but as I started descending the slope on the northern side of the hill the sun came back out and that combined with a stiff breeze soon had me dried out nicely. The steep last half mile drop down into the valley was a bit slick after all the rain so I had to zigzag down or I would have ended up having an unscheduled sit down.
