Day 18:
Sneak peak of my field map in the sun
Getting up this morning to get back in the field was painful! As we reach halfway energy is low, and starting our morning off literally in a cloud was humid, soggy and no fun!
After a painful climb (my legs not feeling happy today) we made it above the cloud and the weather was actually quite reasonable. Ireland even pulled through with a bit of sun at some points. Despite Catherine and I both having minimal energy and losing the will a little bit after lunch, we pushed on (after a quick play of some hype songs) and managed to get through 20 or so localities.
We seem to have a bit of habit of setting our daily aims for one thing, then seeing things in the field that we really didn't expect to see and our day getting completely derailed as we end up doing something else. Today was no exception, and some weird plunges of folds on the top of the hill left us very confused and searching for contacts that we didn't start the day aware would exist.
We called it a day a bit earlier than normal (we thought) but the route back to the car involved a lot of head height fern, bog land and a plant we have christened 'evil grass', because it is horrible to walk through, so we didn't get home until 6pm after all.
Day 19:
Me hugging a rock we just found some lovely sed structures in (don't question it)
The weather in Ireland today was wonderful! A full day of sun, left us with a productive day and sunburnt shoulders. It is safe to say the whole hiking everyday is taking its toll on my muscles but we are officially halfway through the project today so the end is in sight!!
After a great morning, finding rocks in some places we really thought they shouldn't be and then finding multiple contacts to explain them, lunch at the top of the hill with a gorgeous view was lovely!
Then, just as we were heading home, we came across an outcrop that had us completely baffled. After 3 weeks in the field we are pretty familiar with the lithologies in our area (or so we thought). Turns out we had found some chert. This chert however is brick red (rich in oxidised iron) and we were not expecting to see it. After half an hour staring at it, making observations, we left with no idea what we were looking at and some very wacky hypotheses. However when we got home Agnes, who had been mapping in an adjacent area and already seen the chert shared her knowledge with us. Thank goodness!!
Day 20:
A heart shape in a rock found by Holly and Agnes in their area and sent to the group chat.
It was a nice day in the field today with respect to weather. The odd cloud and a few showers meant we were able to climb up some slopes that would have otherwise been too slippy to get up. We managed to get the valley of our west mountain completely mapped today which was such a big achievement and returning home to an almost fully coloured in map was a great feeling.
Despite some odd behaviour from the sheep around us (weird running around in a line) we were done in good time. We even discovered outcropping of one of our sedimentary rocks in the area we assumed was all metamorphic. Just goes to show you should not assume! I have now done some sketch maps and cross sections of the area to try and figure out what is going on structurally. I think it must be due to normal faulting in the area, but guess we will see if I was correct when the maps are a bit more complete.
In the evening we did a communal deep clean of the house and it was transformed. Now clean for the second half of our project and we are all very ready for a well deserved day off and trip into Galway tomorrow.
Day 21:
Us looking very excited outside the cinema pre Barbie screening.
Today was Barbie day!!
After a classic day off pancake breakfast we set off into Galway to go watch the Barbie movie at the cinema. The movie did not disappoint! I don't want to give any spoilers but I would definitely recommend giivng it a watch! It was a great thing for a day off and we had all been looking forward to it for the last 3 weeks.
After a Lidl shop in Galway (mixing it up from our local Aldi), the drive home was spent listening to the Barbie movie sound track and throughly enjoying every song. A notable favourite is 'I'm just Ken', a banger I would say!
Day 22:
Horses in the field next to the cottage we are staying in that we stopped to feed on the way back today.
Back in the field again, our 4th week started off with 'I'm just Ken' blasting out of the car speakers and then running through my head ALL DAY.
The weather in the morning was perfectly acceptable but a worrying forecast meant that we chnaged our original plan for the day and stayed down low to stop us getting caught up on cliffs in horrid weather. This, it turns out, was a very good plan as after about 11:30am we got rather soggy. Relentless rain had us once again videoing our outcrops to write out at home as there was no way we were exposing our precious maps and notebooks to the rain. At about 2pm we were incredibly saturated and decided to head home. Despite the short day we turned out to be very efficient and did our highest outcrop day yet at 27. Now our map of the east mountain is starting to take shape and I'm very pleased!
Day 23:
Spot the Catherine observing a lovely outcrop.
Today felt like a long day although actually being in the field was quite good. The morning started off cold and windy but as the day went on the weather warmed up and we got more productive.
At the end of each day we have been writing a 'daily event' in our notebooks to try and tell the days apart. Today's was that as soon as Catherine got out her peanut butter sandwich a bunch of sheep started baaing and approaching us. As soon as she put it away they stopped and turned around. This is weirdly not he first time this has happened. The sheep on this particular hill seem to be very attracted to Catherine's favourite snack.
After meeting the farmer a couple weeks ago he did tell us that in the winter he feeds the sheep peanuts so they know the smell and that is why they like to approach when we stop to get out lunch. It is however, still a bit ominous each time it happens.
It's hard to know if we are on track to finish on time or not and it's a bit scary. But, all we can do is keep going and being as productive as we can everyday. I am throughly exhausted and my legs are in bits but less than 3 weeks to go now...
コメント