No Snow!

DH Mosquito G-AGGF and AW Whitley ED384 in Glen Esk.
(Distance covered = 18.0 mile/Ascent =+713m)

This one had been on my 'To do' list for quite a while especially as I'd already had two failed attempts to reach it*. Once I'd ran out of time and on the other occasion I was foiled by snow.


I already have a photo of this castle on my webpage about my first attempts at reaching this site; but I've included it here as well as I noticed that it kind of looks like it's 'flipping you the bird' from this angle if you pardon the Americanism.

Off we go again with the weather looking promising, and no snow.

above and below:-Lovely little kirk and graveyard at the eastern end of Loch Lee. Loch Lee Kirk was founded by St. Drostan in the 600s so it's as old as it looks.

My first attempt at reaching this site had failed because before coming to Glen Esk I had dropped the girls at a Dancing competition in Forfar, and I had to be back in time to pick them up when it finished. I realised as soon as I had driven to Glen Esk from Forfar and parked up, that I wasn't going to have time to reach the Mosquito crashsite, so instead I set my sights on reaching the Stables of Lee.  I didn't even make it that far but had to turn back about 2 miles short.

above and next two photos:- Peace and tranquility along the banks of Loch Lee.

The following year I attempted to reach the Mosquito site again, same competition and same scenario; but bearing in mind my previous failure due to lack of time on this occasion, I had fetched along the Mountain Bike. I made it to within half a mile of the crashsite where a rough Landrover track passes around the bottom of Little Corrie Breac, but from there I could see that the site was almost certainly going to be covered in snow. I contemplated climbing up the last half a mile or so in the hope that I might still find something but a bit of a snow Blizzard helped persuade me to leave it for another day. As it turned out the 'another day' ended up being 12 years later.

View up to Easter Balloch from the bottom of Little Corrie Breac, I stood here quite a while deciding whether it was worth the effort to climb up there or not. Eventually a snow blizzard helped me to make my mind up!


 The blizzard that help me decide to abandon my 2nd attempt at reaching the Mosquito site in Glen Esk in April 2013.


Passing Inchgrundle farm for a third time, on a snow free day this time around.

above and below:-Abandoned cottage at the western end of Loch Lee; I could live there like!

I was much more optimistic about reaching this site on my third attempt as there was no snow and I had no time constraints, and as an added bonus the weather, although a little overcast at times was quite pleasant.



above and below:- Making my way along Glen Lee towards the Stables of Lee.




Some Bee Hives, with the Falls of Unich in the background.

About 4.5 miles into this walk there is a Bothy in a very picturesque location, I had toyed with the idea of stopping there after visiting the Mosquito wreck as I was meeting Stuart and Chloe the next day to have another mooch around on top of Hill of Wirren. I dismissed that idea however because it would of meant a 4.5 mile walk in the morning to get back to the car, then drive down to Hill of Wirren to do another 12-15 mile walk on there. Also the Bothy was full of Mountain Bike type people when I reached it anyways.

above and below:- In the little Glen where the Bothy is located.



The Bothy can just be seen here, between the two groups of trees in the middle distance.

Although I wasn't covering the ground as quickly as I did on my Mountain Bike, I was covering it a lot quicker on foot than I did 12 years previous as I was now 4.5 stone lighter, and a lot fitter than I was back then. I much prefer walking into sites over using the Mountain Bike as I think when you're trundling along concentrating on pedaling and avoiding rocks and potholes etc then some of the enjoyment of being out in the wilderness is lost. Plus my knees do not enjoy pedaling the bike up even the slightest incline.

above and below:-Stretch of track between the Bothy and The Stables of Lee.




My random bit of wildlife photography ticked off for the day, a Scottish common brown warty Mctoad.

Above and below:-The Stables of Lee. As the name suggests this building was put here to shelter horses and their accompanying Humans should they encounter foul weather.

From the Stables of Lee I still had over 2 mile to walk to reach Easter Balloch but I  had an abundance of time and the weather was behaving so all was good.  Last time up here I had ditched the bike at the base of Little Corrie Breac with the intention of walking up the burn onto Easter Balloch from there; this time I continued along the Landy track for another half a mile to another small burn and followed that one up instead.

above and below:-Stretch of track between Stables of Lee and Little Corrie Breac.


Following the track a little bit further.


I followed this burn up from the Landy track on the look out for any water or windswept pieces.


Into the search area for Mosquito remains.


The first piece I came across, a hundred meteres or so downhill from the main site.

above and below:-Final resting place of DH Mosquito G-AGGF.

More crashsite photos.

I spent quite a bit of time having a search around the area where G-AGGF crashed and found several areas of wreckage, which gave me an idea of the direction of travel of the Mosquito when it crashed; this sort of information is lost when people  tidy up crashsites and put all the wreckage into neat piles, which is the case at a lot of sites I have visited, particularly in the Peak District.


View across Murley Hill to Lochnagar.

After photographing as many pieces as I could find at the Mosquito site I still had ample time so I headed off over to where the intact wings from Whitley ED384 used to lie, before a 'recovery group' had them away to use in their reconstruction of a Whitley.


Whitley panel that escaped being 'recovered'.

I remembered from when I visited the main crashsite site of ED384** over on Murley hill, seeing what looked like a very large piece of metal, over on the south western slopes of Knowe of Lee. It was probably just a pool of water reflecting the sun but my imagination determined it could be the other wing from the Whitley, as I didn't know if that had been found and recovered for the Whitley bi-plane project or not.  I didn't have the time or energy to go over and check it out back then, so as I was now right next to the Knowe of Lee I went to have a look to see what it was on this trip.

Whatever it was I failed to find it!

Back on the Landy track another mile further on after traipsing around Knowe of Lee for an hour or so trying to find what I imagined as being the other wing from the Whitley.

By the time I'd finished searching Knowe of Lee for imaginary wing sections it was starting to become quite late in the day, and I was now over 8 mile from the carpark so it was time to start making tracks. But first I found a nice boulder to sit on, have some bait and enjoy being alone in the middle of no-where for just a little bit longer.

above and next 6 photos:- Some photos on the way back, pretty much the same as the photos on the way out but facing the other direction ahaha!

*-Previous visits

**-Previous visit to Whitley site.