Back to our Roots

UK HOLIDAY 2011

 

My wife Maureen and I joined the Caravan Club on a visit back to our roots in Northumberland in June 2011 - I was born in Seaton Sluice and Maureen in Wallsend and in the words of Eric Burdon, lead singer of the ‘Animals’ a local pop group at that time, we decided to “get out of this place” and in 1969 took the plunge and emigrated to South Africa where we have lived ever-since.

 

The motivation for our trip back in 2011 was firstly to walk Hadrian’s Way from Bowness-on –Solway to Wallsend, planning it West to East so that we would end up in familiar territory. We had booked a budget campervan over the internet to be picked up inNewcastlethe day after we completed the ‘Walk’. As we wanted to catch up with old friends in the area we headed for the caravan park at Old Hartley where we decided it would be in our best interests to join the Caravan Club as we had five weeks ahead of us to fulfill the next part of our trip. This was to photograph seabird colonies on the many off-shore islands around Northern England andScotlandof which the Farnes a group of islands off-shore from Seahouses in Northumberland and scene of Grace Darling’s heroic rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire, a paddle steamer which broke in two during a storm in 1838, was our next stop. The weather there was foul and we could not land on the islands, the heavy rain also made for difficult photography. However the boat took us inshore on the lee side of the islands and we saw the classic puffins with their beaks full of sand eels, both in flight and on shore, together with an array of razorbills, guillimots, terns, shags, various gulls and marine ducks. We then drove north to our next camp at North Berwick and took a trip out to Bass rock which lies just offshore in  the Firth of Forth, and is home to the largest single island colony of gannets in the world with 150000 birds. In earlier times gannets were known as solan geese inScotlandand were harvested annually for both their flesh and eggs.

As it was quite costly to land on the Bass Rock we decided against it and opted for a boat trip around the rock and two adjacent islands, Craigleith and Fidra – the weather was fair and we got some good photographs of the islands and the birds. There are puffin burrows on Fidra as well as peregrine falcons and we got some fair images of the sea birds around the islands but unfortunately not the falcons.

There is a lot of interesting history in this area with a number of castle ruins including Tantalon and Dunbar, two of the mightiest fortresses in Scottish history, and of course Edinburgh Castle which is far from being a ruin.

From here we crossed theForthBridge  to the north of theForthand visited the fishing villages along this stretch of coast culminating in a trip to the Isle of May from Anstruther. We spent 4 hours on the Isle and the bird life there was amazing with Artic Terns and European oyster catchers nesting alongside the pathways. There were puffin burrows on the cliff tops with puffins arriving constantly with beaks full of food for their single chicks below ground. There were lesser and greater black-back gulls as well as herring gulls and skuas harassing every puffin as they ran the gauntlet to get the food ashore to their waiting chicks. The birds and rabbits on the island have virtually no fear of humans and the only risk to nests and nestlings comes from the gulls and skuas. If we had more time we would have re-visited this island but our plans didn’t allow it.

 

Our next stop was at Killin half-way to the West coast of Scotland and from here we visited the Loch of Lows Osprey Centre where they have a web cam rigged at an Osprey nest and you can observe the comings and goings at the nest in real time as well as from the hide which is quite far from the nest. We had hoped to see golden eagles in Glen Lyon, a remote glen in this area but alas the weather was again not in our favour and it was not to be.

 

We then headed for Oban, the gateway to the Western Isles – we took the ferry to Mull where we were picked up by Turus Mara and taken by combi to Dervaig at the bottom end of the island  and then out to the islands of Staffa and Lunga on the ‘Island Lass’ a 46 foot ferry-boat. Staffa is home to an array of sea-birds but is more famous forFingalsCavefeatured in Mendlesohns Hebrides Overture Opus 26, whereas Lunga is famous for what Turus Mara calls ‘Puffin Therapy’ – where you can lie on the cliff-top and watch puffins with their beaks full of fish land within feet of you and waddle into their burrows. There is also a full range of sea-birds as well as rock pipits and wheat-ears. We spent about 4 hours on the islands, again it would have been nice to spend more time.

 

We left Oban and headed up to Ullapool from where we crossed to Skye via theSkyeBridge, opened in 1995 as a toll bridge but after much public protest the toll was abolished in 2004. On Skye we drove up to Portree to the Sea Eagle Centre, but were quite disappointed as it was extremely commercial so we had a coffee and then left forPortreeHarbourwhere we found a skipper who claimed he could show us sea-eagles in the wild. We went for a three hour trip and saw a sea-eagles nest and two eagles. The weather was again foul and we tried to photograph with our cameras and lenses wrapped in plastic chokka bags which we always take along as emergency covers – we got some pictures but no good images. With hindsight we should have returned and tried for better weather as the eagles were truly remarkable.

 

We pushed on up the West coast and visited Stoer Point lighthouse where we photographed fulmars from the cliffs, and then across the top of Scotland where we were hoping to see red or black throated divers on this section of the trip, but to no avail.

We then carried on to Brora on the East coast, here there is an artic tern breeding colony on the beach in front of the caravan park, plus oyster catchers, herring gulls and common gulls nesting on the golf course between the caravan park and the beach.

 

Time was getting short and the weather was against us so we abandoned our plans for the day to visit the Orkneys and carried on to DunrobinCastle, then on to Wick which was a major harbour during the herring boom in the eighteen hundreds. We visited the museum there and found it to be very interesting from a photography point of view, being home to the Johnson Collection, an astonishing collection of photographs stretching over three generations. The next day was to be a trip out to the Orkneys but when we got to John O’Groats the weather was again inclement so we decided to explore the area on the mainland looking at small lochs  for divers and pushed on to Dunnet Head where we photographed fulmars and skuas as they skimmed the clifftop. There were puffins in the area but their burrows were below our vantage point and too far for photos and as this was our last day before leaving forInvernesswe returned to Brora and the artic terns.

 

At Inverness we stayed in the caravan park at Culloden about a mile from the famous 1846 battle field ofCulloden Moorwhere Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite forces were defeated by the English under the leadership of the Duke of Cumberland. From here we visited the coastal area of the Black Isle and saw red kites at an RSPB re-introduction area.

 

The next day at Inverness we said good-bye to our campervan and returned it to the owner after a 2000 mile trip aroundNorthumberland,Scotlandand the Scottish highlands.

 

We enjoyed our trip so much we have decided to return this year at the end of May and hope for better photographic weather.