Day 6:
A lovely BeReal from our wet weather outing to the local village.
Day 6 was an incredibly welcome day off. Waking up to rain so heavy it cut off our wifi connection for the day (not received well by us but did mean I actually started reading my book) confirmed our decision to not go into the field was a valid one.
We had a nice lazy morning and headed off into the nearest village for coffee after lunch. We browsed a cute charity shop and outdoor stores before trips to Aldi and Tesco, finishing the day by watching far too many episodes of 'Is it Cake?'.
Day 7:
Some sheep we spotted sheltering from the rain in a little hole by the river.
Being back in the field was not as bad as I expected. The weather in the morning did not look promising and the discovery after breakfast that my waterproof trousers had multiple holes in the bum was not a great start. We had also driven to the ideal parking space we had found last week and found it now behind a gate labelled 'private', another unwelcome discovery.
After finding a different parking spot we then set off into the field, attempting to find the river we planned on mapping. We did not find it quickly. Once we did find it it was so full from the rain that we couldn't map it anyway. Safe to say spirits were low.
We did however, mange to turn it around. We decided to head a bit farther south than we had been previously and just look at as many outcrops as possible to populate our maps. The weather really cleared up after about 11am and despite it being very windy we were able to get a decent amount of outcrops in and I finished my first notebook on outcrop number 101. A good effort for the first 6 days in the field.
Day 8:
Enjoying the weather whilst using my hammer (RIP, this was it's last sighting)
Today was a long day! We did not set off into the field with the intention of doing an 8.5 hour day (for reference we usually do between 6 and 7) but the rocks distracted us and we ended up on the top of the hill for much longer than expected.
The day was meant to start with a quick hike up to the top. However we ended up seeing lots of outcrops we just HAD to map, and we spent all morning scaling cliff faces (like hands and legs rock climbing) to map some contacts. The end result was pretty good but it meant we didn't start with our original plan of doing a higher resolution map of the top of the hill until after lunch.
Figuring out the maths for the scale of our map posed more of a problem than it really should have. For two women in STEM, we really did a poor job of working out the scale (I blame the rain and the fact we had already been in the field for 5 hours) so it took us a while to get going. Despite this, the higher resolution map, when we did eventually start, was a great idea as we got to see how the different units properly interact.
When 5pm hit we decided to call it a day and finish the rest off tomorrow. A brief panic when I lost Catherine on top of the hill (found her again10 minutes, don't worry mum) and couldn't find my hammer (never found that, think its at the bottom of the cliff we scaled) along with the long day of walking meant that we returned exhausted. Another day in the field done!
Looking back at office maps in the evening we got a lot done today and I'm very pleased with our progress. At the start of the day it hit me how much we have to actually map and I was a little overwhelmed. I am sure I will continue to be overwhelmed more but for now at leastI think we might just about be on track.
Day 9:
Weather writer in use as we sat at the top of the hill writing up and outcrop in the rain
Given we planned for an easier day today, we did not achieve it. Another 8.5 hour field day saw us starting off with an hour and a half rapid ascent to the peak of the hill where we spent the next 6 hours mapping around the top.
It was labour intensive and we literally went rock to rock finishing off the higher resolution map we started yesterday. I think, however, it's safe to say both of us are very pleased with the results. We have now located a bunch of contacts on the top of the west hill and have really made a lot of progress on that side of our field area.
The morning started off with heavy rain and a severe weather warning that had us questioning if it was a sensible idea for us to even be in the field. However, after 10am the only rain we experienced exactly coincided with the half hour we had as our lunch break. It was a little miserable eating lunch in full waterproofs but it meant the actual mapping went really well.
Heading down the mountain was much more enjoyable than walking up and it had been a very productive day. We were feeling very proud of ourselves until we reached a particularly water saturated bit of land. Catherine called it a bog, I believe she chose to lead me through a river, either way the ground was very wet, very muddy, and not an acceptable path. We decided it just walk through it anyway. After watching Catherine cross it with ease I followed her and ended up knee deep in thick, thick mud. Not happy!
The way back to the car was then delayed as I had to take my boots of and wash them, along with my socks, in the river to get rid of all the mud as we planned on going to the supermarket on the way home. As I squelched my way back tot he car in soggy socks and boots we then came across a lamb with its head stuck in a fence. The poor little thing was very scared by us but Catherine whipped out her sheep whispering skills and set it free. We then made it back home about 6:15pm absolutely exhausted!
However, it was the movie night episode on Love Island which meant it was a great evening in our little cottage! The daily 9pm viewing of Love Island is really getting us through each day, not sure what is going to happen for the last 10 days of our project when the season has finished but I like not to think about that far ahead.
Day 10:
My view of Catherine as we roadside mapped in the rain.
After two big days in the field we decided to give ourselves a half day today. The valley area between our two hills had so far been a bit neglected by us so the plan was to drive round there today and map any roadside outcrops we could find.
This was quite a boring and unrewarding task. We basically just walked along the road and knocked on doors asking if we could go into people's fields to look at rocks. With about ten outcrops done by 2pm we decided that was all the exposure we were going to get in the valley and headed home.
When we returned we then narrowed down our mapping area based on where outcrop was available. The project requires us to map between 11 and 15 square kilometres. We set off on our project unsure of exactly where we wanted to map but managed to get that sorted out today after having spent just over a week deciding where the best exposure was.
With a very welcome free afternoon, I decided to go on a little run around the area we are staying in. The views of Lough Na Fooey were incredible (we can't actually see it from our mapping area) and although I don't love running uphill I would even say the views were worth it.
We spent the rest of the evening just sort of chilling out and doing odd jobs such as laundry and washing up etc, ready for another two full days in the field to finish off our week.
Day 11:
A sunny lunch spot next to the Lough. Was about the only 20 minutes of the whole week the hat was necessary
Day 11 saw us heading to the East mountain in our area that we had somewhat ignored so far this week. The lack of outcrop and abundance of shoulder height ferns in the area we intended to map today meant our morning was not the most productive. We made it down to the edge of the lough for lunch and had just got out our sandwiches when we suddenly found ourselves face to face with a herd of sheep. Turns out that these sheep were being herded by a lovely sheepdog called Spot. After a brief chat to Spot's owner we went on our way and had a slightly more productive afternoon. We sorted out a bunch of lithologies and rock units that we were still confused about and returned home with relatively dry feet and relatively full notebooks.
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