The Wirren what's what, part 2
Hawker Sea Fury VW590 on Hill of Wirren
(Distance covered =
9.2 mile(map) 12.5 mile(fitbit)/Ascent =+617m)
Another trip to the Championships in Aberdeen provided me with the opportunity to nip back to Hill of Wirren to have another look for a couple of the crashsites I'd failed to find on my previous visit a year earlier.
On my first visit to Hill of Wirren* I'd set out to visit 9 crashsites, I ended up only having time to look for 8, and of those 8 I only had grid references for 7, one of which I was to find out later was out by about half a mile. I eventually only found three.
Parked up above Dalbog Farm again, I still
miss Blueberry Esmerelda Muffin II!
Last time I was here I had set off walking at 5am, this time it was 6 hours later, just as well I wasn't planning on going as far. One advantage of the later start however being it was a lot warmer.
Nice views off down Glen Esk.
My objective for the day was finding the crashsite of Hawker Sea Fury VW590. I was now in possession of the correct grid reference for this crashsite, last time the published grid reference I had was actually where some pieces of Hurricane AF978 had been found and misidentified as being pieces of the Sea Fury, and they weren't even there anymore so I had spent over an hour searching for bits from the wrong crashsite.
The area where the Sea Fury crashed is roughly dead centre of the photo.
The hill on the left is East Wirren.
If I had time after finding the Sea Fury, I planned on continuing up onto the top of Wirren and having a random walk around to see if I got lucky and found some pieces from something other than the B24 and Beaufort.
X= Crashsite of Hurricane AF978, Y= Location of Sea Fury crashsite as per
reference book,
Z= Actual location of Sea Fury crashsite.
As I was walking along the Landy track that passes below the crashsite of Hurricane AF978 I spotted a piece of wreckage lying in the heather, thinking it could be a piece of the Hurricane I went to investigate, but disappointedly although very old and corroded it looked more like it was the back of a headlight that had fallen off some long forgotten land vehicle.
Piece of Hurricane or Car headlight???
Waterfall and Wirren.
Although I now had the correct grid reference it was only 6 digits, so that meant I still had 10.000sq metres to search and the area was all bogs and high grass which did quite a good job of concealing the wreckage which I only spotted when I was less than 10 feet away.
Photograph taken of the crashsite from 100metres away, it's
concealed in the light grass just beyond the larger patch of heather.
Above and below:-Wreckage of Sea Fury VW590. (More wreckage photos)
above and below:-Photos of the crashsite taken from the other side of the 'Little burn of Kilrie', from here a small piece of wreckage can just be seen peeking out above the grass.
After finding the Sea Fury I decided I wouldn't have enough time for a random walk around on the top of Wirren so instead I headed over to the 'Shank of Stramile' to have a bit of a root around over there for any remains of a possible second Hurricane crash. All I found was what looked like a homemade bazooka.
The homemade 'Bazooka' was in fact a bird scarer.
Pleased it didn't go off while I was taking the photo!
Above and below:-The Shank of Stramile, I reckon if a Hurricane did crash on there it could be in amongst the boulders on the rocky slopes to the right. Didn't have enough time to search there!
