Ulva: Croft ruins Traditional Geocache
countrymatters: Cache is damaged and cannot be replaced. So, time to call it a day.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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One of a series of 10 caches placed on the island of Ulva to celebrate ten years of geocaching. You reach the island by a ferry from mainland Mull. Ferry sailings are Monday-Friday 9am-5pm (0900-1700) on demand. Also runs Sundays from 1 June to end of August. Ferry closed all day Saturday. Adverse weather conditions can also prevent the ferry from running.
The cache lies along the Gometra road, between Ulva ferry and the adjacent island of Gometra. Along the way there are numerous ruins dotting the landscape. These would have been inhabited by crofters evicted during the time of the Highland Clearances, although probably not for the usual reasons, i.e. sheep.
Three-quarters of the population were deported between 1846 and 1851 by the landowner, Francis William Clark. It was unfortunate that this was a time when the kelp industry, on which many of the islanders relied, foundered, and was quickly followed by a period of severe potato blight. The result was that Ulva, at its height with more than 600 crofters, was heavily over-populated. In fairness, Clark did try a number of relief schemes before arriving at the decision to clear the land, and he did pay a proportion of the costs of emigration. It was his employees rather than Clark himself, who, with or without his knowledge, forcibly evicted families from their cottages without warning, by putting torches to the thatch, not even allowing time for the people to gather their few possessions. Nor were they permitted to take their cattle, which were forfeit.
The cache will be found concealed among the croft ruins, which, in spite of their poignant history make a splendid spot to take a break and gaze across the waters of Loch Tuath to the Eas Fors waterfall and lava-layered Ben na Drise.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ubyr orarngu fgbarf.