A state of grace

Lorna, Allan and I paddled out of Cullen Bay in the most beautifully calm conditions, the evening light reflecting on glassy calm water.

I don't believe I've ever experienced such a peaceful evening on the Moray Firth coast. There was a complete absence of swell or surf noise and even the seabirds were quieter and more relaxed as we passed.  Paddle strokes seemed effortless as the distance slipped by on our return to Sandend. In such conditions one can enter a kind of state of grace; the journey, the sea and the sky merging to give a great feeling of peace and well-being.

Approaching the turn into Sandend Bay, the sky in the west was amazing.  Gauze thin high cloud was picked out by crepuscular rays as the sun dipped below cloud banks, just beautiful.

As a final treat, we saw a pod of the Moray Firth dolphins crossing the bay parallel to us as we headed back into the harbour.  What a truly lovely evening........

Going out for dinner - an outside table for three please!

After passing through the tunnel we continued past the gaunt ruin of Findlater Castle on our way to Logie Head, the bold blade of rock marking the eastern end of Cullen Bay.

 
There are rockhopping possibilities here too in such calm weather and we threaded the channels at the very base of the head..........

....before paddling along the shore of Cullen Bay past small rock stacks, enjoying the warm sun on our faces..........

 ...............to arrive at our dinner destination, Cullen.  The town is best known for "Cullen Skink", a smoked haddock, potato and onion chowder.  Haddock would be on our menu too, but in a slightly more calorific form :o)

The classic British Fish n' Chips, served in paper and eaten al fresco - what could be better?!  We bought our dinner from "Linda's Fish & Chips" just above the harbour and ate them whilst sat on the harbour wall, our "table" had great views along the bay.

Suitably fed and watered, we got ourselves sorted for the paddle back to Sandend.  The wind had now died to a breath, but despite this we were pleased to note a complete absence of midges - the little blighters are fortunately much less prevalent on the east coast.

Our evening out had given us superb close-in paddling amongst the rock architecture, channels and caves; a historic castle, some lovely views of the birds along the coast, but there were two more special treats saved for our retun leg....

Going out for dinner - the road less travelled

On a warm and tranquil late afternoon, Lorna, Allan and I met at Sandend on the Moray Firth coast to go out for dinner.

We took the road less travelled......

 Down narrow ways.......

......and even narrower ways......

.....through a tunnel which none of us had found previously on this complex stretch of coastline.  The early evening sun lit the water and created a path of green light.

A honey scented walk up Mount Blair

Mount Blair is a small hill at the south end of Glen Shee and is on the border between Perthshire and Angus.  It's classified as a "Graham", a Scottish hill between 2000 and 2500 feet in height.  I've often noticed it when driving the A93 road between Braemar and the south as although not a big hill it has a prominent location and is crowned with a telecommunications mast.

As I was driving this way and had an hour or so to spare, I thought it would make a nice short climb.

The ascent leaves the B9150 right on the Perthshire/Angus boundary and pretty much goes straight uphill over grassy ground grazed by sheep and cattle.  Thistles are coming into flower, the vivid flower heads bright against a cloudy sky.

Heather is also in full bloom and the air was filled with a glorious heather-honey smell.  The gentle ridges to the east made for some nice angles

The upper slopes of the hills here are carpeted in the paler Ling heather (Calluna vulgaris), and in places a bit lower down this is mixed with the darker Bell heather (Erica cinerea).

A dust of pollen coats both boots and trousers as you walk through the heather, the sound of bees is ever present.  Higher up the hill a chilly breeze was blowing, but the heather scent was still strong.

At the summit the large telecommunications mast is a bit of an intrusion but can be ignored except for the noise of the wind in the rigging holding it together.  A view indicator was installed here but is now in a bit of disrepair, although inside the  circular windbreak  a plaque commemorating several prominent local landowners is still in place.  The large cairn is possibly prehistoric and is reputed to hold a more recent suicide's grave.

 Mount Blair sits right at another boundary, that between highland and lowland ground.  To the north the view is absolutely highland with the green trough of Glen Shee winding up to the bigger hills of the southern Cairngorms.  Close by are the Angus Glens, long parallel valleys cutting into the Mounth hills between the Cairngorms and the North Sea coast.

To the south the view is much more lowland in nature with the  mix of farmland, moorland and forest which makes Perthshire such a varied county.

 I varied my descent to take in a heathery ridge to the east and add a couple of kilometers to the walk.  Perhaps appropriately, I put up a couple of young Red Grouse on my way down to the road.  This was the "Glorious Twelfth" - 12th August being the start of the Grouse shooting season in Scotland.

The whole walk took less than two hours - as a hill to climb for some exercise on a journey either south or north it's a great choice and a super viewpoint too. 

A short walk to Johnshaven Fish Festival

This weekend saw the annual Johnshaven Fish Festival taking place.  It's a lively affair with all kinds of fish and shellfish available to eat and to buy as well as lots of other local specialities. We set off to walk to Johnshaven from Gourdon, five kilometers north along the coastal path which follows the line of a former railway trackbed.

As well as good food and drink, there was entertainment ranging from a pipe band to a rock band.  The weather was dry - always a bonus for an outdoor event in Scotland!  The harbour area of the village was very busy.

We'll visit Johnshaven again soon when the NEOS arts festival is taking place; there are numerous artists and studios in this pretty village.

We bought a pair of Arbroath Smokies fresh from the smoker, a delicious smell of fish and woodsmoke drifting across the harbour ensured that this famous stall was kept very busy! A smokie is a haddock smoked by traditional methods, using oak chips here, and the fish has now attained protected regional food status, meaning that only haddock smoked by these traditional methods within a five mile radius of Arbroath can be truly called "Arbroath Smokies".  Once eaten, never forgotten - a Smokie is a delicious and healthy food.

I blogged about the building of this fine boat previously when she was in the early stages of construction.  After a few setbacks (the building beside which she was being constructed burned down - the rebuild job can be seen in the second picture of this post) she is nearing completion as a Creeler.

Her likely employment will be in working creels for Lobsters.  The nearby business was selling Lobsters straight from the boiler - we couldn't resist buying one for dinner....  After eating lunch bought from a harbourside stall we walked back to Gourdon with the mingled smells of Arbroath Smokie and fresh Lobster wafting from the bags we carried!

All ready for preparation.  A Lobster so very fresh needs nothing fancy, we simply opened it and......

....served it with fresh salad, lemon, wholemeal bread and butter and accompanied by a glass of chilled Prosecco.  Just delicious!  Having access to such good, local and fresh produce from mountain, farm and sea is one of the joys of living here. 

If ever a 10 kilometer walk was amply rewarded, then it was this one!

An umbrella of rock

Continuing west from Portknockie, the next harbour along the coast is Findochty.  A small beach immediately to the east of the village seemed to be a good place to stop for lunch but the weed on the strandline was plagued with sandflies.  I decided to head back a bit to a bouldery beach I'd spotted near Tronach Head.

As I approached the beach there was a sudden commotion among the seabirds.  I was sure that this wasn't a reaction to my presence and looked upwards, just as the unmistakeable arrowhead shape of a Peregrine Falcon carved through the air along the cliffs and landed on an outcrop.  This was a juvenile bird, quite darkly coloured and a bit clumsy but still enough of a threat to panic the seabirds. It's really good to see these birds doing well.

After a leisurely stop for lunch I headed east back along the coast.  There are numerous caves along this stretch, some perhaps destined to become arches like the Bow Fiddle in time.

From the southeast there were dark clouds looming and on the horizon I could see heavy rain falling.  As luck would have it I was close to the cave I'd wanted to examine more closely; this would make a good shelter!

I've often looked into this cave, which is about 50 meters long, but the conditions have never been good enough for me to enter; either a swell has been running or there hasn't been enough water.  Today everything was favourable and I paddled into the entrance, watched by several nesting Shags and Kittiwakes.  The air was cooler inside and the all pervading sharp smell of seabird guano was quite strong, but I was out of the rain which had begun falling heavily outside.

 There's even a slit window set into the wall part way along, so I could check on the progress of the rain shower....

The tide was pretty much near to a Spring high water and at the back of the cave the exit led to a small pool with just enough space to turn around.  This back door is much smaller than the front entrance and must be a fearsome place when big swells pass down the funneling walls and roof of the cave.

My umbrella of rock had kept me completely dry through a really heavy downpour and as it headed out to sea, I did the same.

Stopping for a leg stretch on the sand at the western end of Cullen beach, the cloudscape was quite impressive and picked out nice shades in the water.  A short paddle back to Cullen harbour ended the trip.

As described, this is a 13 kilometer round trip from Cullen.  Allow three to four hours to explore the many caves and stacks.  There isn't too much to be concerned about with tides, the flow can be paddled against even at Springs.  The main limitation here is swell; anything more than a half meter swell will create uncomfortable clapotis along most of the coast.

There is easy launching and adjacent parking at Cullen harbour plus public toilets.  There is also an independent hostel right on the harbour which would make a great base for visiting paddlers to explore the Moray Firth coast with super trips both east and west from Cullen.

Back in the Saddle and through the Bow Fiddle

My last paddle had been in the warmth of Florida.  Whilst the Moray Firth can hardly claim to be as warm, it does offer super sea kayaking.  On a nice summer day, I headed out from the pretty harbour town of Cullen, heading west along the coast. It was good to be back in the boat and I quickly relaxed into a leisurely pace along the sandy shore to where the rocky coastline re-established itself beyond the beach.

This section of the coast has some superb caves.  As a Spring tide was still flooding I left exploration of most of them for the return journey when there would be more water.  This one was intruiging as the only means of access to the bouldery beach beyond appears to be through the cave; the cliffs preventing access from the shore.

The geological showpiece on this part of the Moray Firth coast is the Bow Fiddle, a freestanding rock arch near the village and harbour of Portknockie.  Approaching from the east, the arch is quite hard to make out against the main rock outcrop .

From either the shore or from seaward however, the Bow Fiddle stands out as a graceful arch forming a flying bridge to the main rock stack. It's said to have a resemblance to the bow used to play a fiddle, hence the name.

The passage  through the arch can be either exciting or impossible in bouncy conditions, particularly at the shoreward side where the configuration of cliffs and rocks sets up some really nasty clapotis in an onsore swell. No such problems today though, an easy passage under the 15 metre high roof.

Just around the corner from the Bow fiddle is the harbour of Portknockie, a typical fishing harbour.  There are virtually no boats working from here now but in its heyday this place would have been very busy with boats, fish merchants and all the trades associated with the industry of fish curing.

As if in a nod to these bygone times, a glance to seaward picked out this fine traditional sailing boat.  I followed this boat west past Portknockie, heading west towards the next village along the coast.

A riverside walk in Glen Tanar

Home at last after a long four months working away, the perfect way to settle back in seemed to be a riverside stroll.  After looking at wide and empty horizons for so long, the intimate surroundings of Glen Tanar provided a beautiful contrast.  We started near Bridge o' Ess and walked along the minor road up the glen to the old pack bridge which gives access to a small visitor centre before heading back downstream along the Water of Tanar.

The river is at a low summer level, much different than the brawling spates of late winter when huge boulders can be moved downstream.  The Tanar is born high in the hills which separate Deeside from the Angus Glens and starts life as a typical highland stream before passing through pinewoods to join the River Dee near Aboyne.

 

There are quiet pools in the river in which we saw lots of tiny Brown Trout, and sections of moving water running gently over granite boulders.

 

The late summer flowers were in full bloom - this I think is Creeping Forget-Me-Not (Mysotosis secunda)

A much easier one to identify here, Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra), also known as "hardheads" and used by generations of small boys  to hit each other with!

Here and there under the birches and alders of the riverbank were small stands of beautiful Bluebells.  the nomenclature is slightly confusing - the "official" name for this plant is Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) and it is also known as Scottish Bluebell to distinguish it from the slightly smaller and more brilliantly blue flower known here as "English Bluebell".

 Whatever name you use, the fragile beauty of the flowers is a joy.

In a slightly more open area we found the delicate flowers of Herb-Robert ( Geranium robertianum). This plant has a traditional use to treat toothache and nosebleeds, and has an unusual odour of burning rubber when the leaves are crushed, the source of another common name of "stinking bob".

The wildflowers were attracting butterflies too.  Under the more open pinewood we saw several species including several Ringlets (Aphantopus hyperantus).  A recent colonist in the Cairngorms region, the caterpillars of this butterfly feed on grasses rather than specific food plants.

Soon we were back at Bridge o' Ess; it had been a great short walk and the feast of colour and greenery along with the gentle flow of the river had definitely eased the jet lag!