Culbin Sands

The morning started earlier than normal, our little one was up from 4am (yes 4, and no, he did not go back to sleep until bedtime), and the littlest of the fife contingent woke at 3.30 after lenghy 3 hour sleep - seems she wasn't such a fan of her first 'camping' experience, but after the standard campsite breakfast of bacon, sausage and egg rolls, we donned our waterproofs and set off for the Forestry Commission Scotland forest at Culbin Sands.

The forest area is huge, around 14km in length along the shoreline and comprises of shoreline, dunes, saltmarsh, with areas of plantation forestry as well as natural regeneration. The plantation trees are mainly Coriscan Pine which are well suited to the coastal environment and the landscape of these magnificant deep green trees against the white of the sand and the blue of the sky is incredible. Sadly, much of the forest has been infected by Red Band Needle Blight, a disease caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum which causes severe defoliation of the tree infected, significantly weakening it structurally, reducing the timber value and eventually leading to mortality. An action programme is in place across the UK to monitor and restrict the spread of the disease with specific focus on key areas such as the Caledonian Pinewoods and areas like the Coriscan pine at Culbin. If you feel a little forestry geeky like me you can read more.

We climbed the Hill 99 trail, which follows a 6km route through the forest, past a few gorgeous ponds, full of fish and tadpoles and up to the highest dune on which there is a timber structure which gives a squirrels eye view across the tops of the highest trees and beyond, across the dunes and the Moray Firth and over to the hills of Sutherland in the distance.

It is well worth visiting if you are in the area. Our little ones did an incredible job of walking the whole way (well we did cut out a little bit at the end), entertaining each other along the way and making do with the few snacks that we had remembered to take. We spent a long time at one of the ponds searching for tadpoles and at one point, deep in the forest, we spotted a large wood ant colony and stopped for a while to watch them busily at work.

After Culbin we had a short stop at the eco cafe at the Findhorn Community for the most incredible cake and then back to the wigwams for the little ones to huddle together and watch a dvd.

Fish and chips from the chipper in Forres with strawberries and ice cream for pudding and then it was lights out for all concerned. Our little one finally got to sleep around 10pm, eighteen hours after he first got up.