Thank you to Dair Mor who placed this cache, and many others throughout Perthshire in 2010.
Big Tree Country in miniature, this is. In just 19 hectares of land, gifted by the Barbour family to National Trust for Scotland, you have a lovely woodland walk on several levels, stonking specimen trees, wildlife in abundance, adventure sports, the confluence of two rivers, and visits by such as Robert the Bruce and Queen Victoria.
Little wonder that it is so popular. At least in the first section. You will find peace and calming solitude on the return leg.
The cache is close to a magnificent Sitka Spruce; number O5363.
As you may well be muggled here are some interesting factoids about the Sitka to bandy aloud while they pass.
- The Sitka spruce takes its name from Sitka Sound in Alaska , where it is officially the state tree.
- It is the largest spruce to be found in North America . Typical mature specimens stand about 70 metres tall with a girth of 2 metres. However, the tallest Sitka ever recorded is 93 metres high and 5 metres across.
- Left alone by logging companies they can live for 700 years. However, they are fast growers, so this particular specimen is deceiving, being a relative youngster. (Taller, wider Sitkas recently felled on Murthly estate turned out to be just 90 years old.)
- It produces a light wood that can be used for musical instruments such as violins and the sounding boards of pianos. It was also used in the construction of the second airplane to take the air, the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk . (As every schoolboy knows, the first powered flight was made by Preston Watson of Dundee. Although there are no records of what woods he used.)
- Native Americans used its resinous sap as a laxative.
- Its leaves have been used to flavour spruce beer, which was an important aid for sailors such as Captain Cook who tried various remedies against scurvy. Modern spruce beers are Alba Scots Pine Ale and the Alaska Brewing Co.’s Winter Ale.
- Sitka Spruce was introduced to Britain in 1831 by David Douglas, although it was described and recorded by Archibald Menzies in the 1790s.
- It is undoubtedly over planted in Scotland, to the point where we are sick of the sight of them. En masse, that is.
This cache is one of many to be hidden gradually from now until the Mega 2010 Perth. A series of caches to be hidden right in the heart of Perthshire Big Tree Country. More information can be found by clicking on the banner and the website above.