Day One!

It was not a helpful start to the week. Late last night, after everyone was in a bed in the hostel dorm, a new woman turned, presumably only just arrived from her journey. This is normal in hostels- except this particular lady asked someone else who was already in bed (and I later found out had actually been unwell that day), to swap bunks, because she wasn't able to get into a top bunk. If this didn't cause disruption enough, the latecomer proceeded to fall asleep swiftly, and loudly moan in her sleep the entire night- noone else had what could remotely be considered a good night's sleep- but I suppose it wasn't really her fault!

All that aside, I awoke (or more accurately, became slightly more awake) bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to take on my first day of volunteering the with the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd. I arrived just before I was due to start, and had the treat of spotting a red squirrel scurrying around in the tree outside, which was a nice treat to begin the week.

I then met the staff and was shown around the visitor centre. It shall be my job this week to prepare it to open up each day- this involves opening the curtains in the little elf house and tidying the cushions, making sure the colouring in and antler making activities are well stocked up, and turing on the lights and video screens. Then there's the glamourous task of  scooping droppings from the pens so the 6 reindeer who are currently installed down at the visitor centre are well presented for the visitors! These reindeer are regularly swapped with others from the herd on the mountainside (perhpas every two weeks), as the grass at the lower altitiude is richer and less suited to them. Of the 6 down at the centre at the moment, there are two calves, who I was rather pleased to learn were called Clueso and Poirot. Each year they take a new theme for the naming of the calves, that year was detectives and secret agents (there's also a Marple and a Bond!). One year it was cheeses, another Scottish Mountains, and another games and pastimes.

Scooping!

Clueso and Poirot!

The pens at the visitor centre

When all the housekeeping duties were done, it was time to enroll visitors for the hill trip to visit the herd. I had the job of going to get wellies for those who required to borrow them. There was the added complication that some of the visitors were American, and so their shoe sizes were different- but clearly this has happened before, and someone has cleverly printed out a size chart.

With everyone ready to go we drove up to the car park further up the hill, and walked to the hill enclosure. I helped carry some of the supplys for the trip- though I have not yet graduated to carrying a full load! Currently, the reindeer are mostly in different parts of a 2km long enclosure, because it is breeding season. This helps to control who is breeding with who, and keeping the males (Bulls) from fighting about it- much safer for visitors, and herders too!

Origami being captured

My new friend!

Once we got up to the hill I got the unexpected pleasure of being taken away from the group in order to help relocate three of the reindeer to a different area. They were to go back to the car park to be driven to 'The Farm', where another part of the herd is. This allows them to keep a larger number of reindeer than they could do in one site, and also protects against the risk of loosing the whole herd to disease such as Foot and Mouth.

We did a few rounding up tactics in order to get the reindeer onto their reins, and it seemed to go quite well from where I was standing, though I did not have the task of actually putting the reins over their noses! I then got to lead one of the three, Origami, back to the van (which is called Brenda!). This is a nice walk down to a river, over a bridge and back up the other side. I Think I am going to be veery familiar with it by the end of the week!

After lunch it was time for sleigh training!! Now that we are into October, there is only one hill visit a day, instead of two or three, as there are in peak season. This means that it is time to prepare for Christmas! We spent a soggy hour or two seeing how the reindeer (the 6 that are curretly in the pens at the centre) can be harnessed up to santa's sleigh, for their Christmas outings across the country. Two of the herders are just training to to do this so they can take the reindeer on these trips, so they practiced harnissing the deer, and I helped with holding the reins of the deer that were not yet being harnessed. It was Poirot and Clueso's second ever time with reins, and one in particular was quite detremined to rub and scratch his nose (and therefore also antlers!) on whoever's legs were nearest.

I should say that although there is actually snow atop the highest mountains, santa's sleigh is on wheels- it isn't that snowy here yet!!

After the excitment of sleigh practise, it was back to the hill with another batch of food for the other groups of reindeer that hadn't been feed by the visitors in the morning. It was still raining (although the morning had been nice at least), so it was pretty cold out there. Myself and one of the herders went to the furthest field, where the spectacularly antlerd Cotta (may not be slept that way!), the breeding Bull, was waiting for feeding time with his 8 females. It was quite trek out there over very uneven ground, but lovely to see more reindeer up close! 



Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow may bring!