Everyone knows about Haggii. They are short round furry beasts that have legs on one side of their body longer than the other, so that they can run around Scottish mountains easily.
And Haggis Hunter is a cool name for geocaching, but I wonder who suspects that he truly is a hunter of Haggises?
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Note: The correct plural of haggis is haggii, although under certain grammatical circumstances it can be haggises or even “wee yins”. The name Haggii comes from the Latin for “harried ones”. Source - Haggisclopedia.
This fact actually has a lot of bearing of the story that unfolds, as witnessed by myself, Saintchris13, who was at the exact spot, just minutes before, and really close at the moment it happened. Within earshot. Almost. I was certainly in the right place to hear the news from the first people back to the pile of rubbish we had collected. So my account is as first hand as it gets. Unless you ask Haggis Hunter. Or his close friends. But they are covering up the whole truth!
What really happened on the day of the 10th Anniversary CITO of the Water of Leith near St Mark's Park (organised by Haggis Hunter himself) is as follows:
Attired in waders, having scoped out the area previously, the primary aim of Haggis Hunter was to get down into the water and get the really big bits of rubbish out of the river itself. A local haggis had noticed this 'scoping out', and seen that Haggis Hunter (or Dale, Dale Vole, to give his everyday name - changed of course to protect the faintly embarrased, due to the fact that I am already tired of typing out Haggis Hunter and Dale is about as short as it gets...) was using his GPS to make various records of the coordinates. The canny beastie thought it would be a good opportunity to hang about for his return and gain revenge for the many, many haggii that Dale had caught in his long and distinguished career.
The haggis ensured that his tribe [ I note that a proposed collective noun for Haggis is an offal lot 
] would continuously stake out the spot, waiting for the return of their great enemy.
As an aside at this point, it may be worth noting that Dale may have had a premonition of things being about to go wrong, because he had already organised a stone balancing geocaching event for June. I am afraid I am giving away a secret here, given that I have also recently started stone balancing myself, and have discovered some of the secrets. Although it is relaxing, and aesthetically pleasing to some (bonkers to others), there is a true reason for stone balancing. It is the main technique used for catching Haggis! Being creatures with a certain affinity for rocks and mountains, their naturally inquisitive nature makes a stack of stones absolutely impossible to leave alone. They creep up close for a good sniff round, but the inherent instability of a balanced stone stack means that when they make the slightest contact...Burns Supper here we come! Properly heavy stones mangle the insides nicely. Hence why a good stone balancer is in high demand for the hunting of Haggis.
Anyway, on the day itself, the haggii bade their time. They quite fancied having a clean and tidy river to play in, wash in and drink from.
But as Dale approached the foot of Bonnington Weir, a brave little haggis took his chance (I say he, because if Dale had been at the other side of the weir, it would have had to be a brave little female haggis edging along the opposite way, due to having her legs longer on the opposite side to the male - the females were all congregated on the other side just in case. This difference is how you can tell the sexes apart). With his long legs downstream and his short legs upstream, he carefully edged along the base of the weir, almost looking like a rock rolling in the flow. He edged closer and closer. As Dale turned for a photo, the little haggis threw himself beneath Dale's left foot, waited til it was planted on top of him, and with a last almightly effort flung himself forward, with the effect that Dale slipped, fell backwards, and dislocated his shoulder. I couldn't tell what happened to the haggis. I couldn't quite see from where I was. He may or may not have survived.
If he was sacrificed, his sacrifice was not in vain, because I doubt anyone reading this ate any Haggis the whole time Dale had his arm in a sling!
Dale was carted off to hospital, stopping off for a photoshoot in front of all the rubbish. And the haggii all over Scotland breathed a sigh of relief at the news.
Near the spot where this commemorative cache is hidden, there are a couple of benches, where you can sit and contemplate this tale, and the plight of the haggis. There was a brass plaque on one of the seats, so that tourists would be aware of the deeper significance of this lovely location. The haggis obviously took exception to this and removed it. I have managed to add an image of an early sketch made by the engraver, so that we have some idea of what it may have looked like.
If anyone who was present on that day also comes to find this cache, any photographic evidence added to your logs would be magic. It may provide evidence of my story and a possible glimpse of a live (or stepped on) haggis.
And the Haggises will have spotted me taking coordinates, so beware!
