A day at the seaside

We had a wonderful walk today along the coast starting here at the former fishing town of Cullen. This view is looking down on "the Seatown" which was originally a settlement of fishermen's cottages sandwiched on a false beach between the mouth of the Cullen burn and the harbour. Originally the fishing boats used to be pulled up on the beach in front of the houses where you see the ones at the front all having their gable ends facing the sea to provide maximum protection, as is the tradition in the fishing villages along this northern coast. You will notice that the other cottages are all built very close together again, probably, to provide protection as much as needing to fit in to the available area. The larger building with the dark grey roof near the beach is the Methodist Church. To the left of the shot you can just see a part of one of a very long railway viaduct and, to the right, the main part of the town sits much higher above the harbour overlooking this old settlement. The town is also known for its Cullen Skink, a traditional soup of smoked haddock, potatoes, milk and onions. Our walk took us from the harbour along the coast and up the sides of the steep, gorse covered slopes of the cliffs. All along the coastline were huge lumps of strongly fissured rocks which had one time been part of the cliffs above us. We saw a fair bit of bird life along the way but I was particularly delighted to see a pair of Eider ducks bobbing about close to shore, although we did miss seeing a group of dolphins which had been spotted by a couple of other walkers.

On our way home we stopped to look at an old 17th century harbour at Portsoy where the original brickwork of the harbour wall is quite splendid. A new harbour has now replaced the old one but both still provide excellent shelter from the sea in rough weather. When I get home I will put some of the other shots of the day on Flickr. I had made a collage of four shots but Blipster wouldn't or couldn't upload it for some reason!

During our walk we had managed to stop to do some sketching too so it has been an excellent day all round.