Into the wilds of Scotland: dolphins and sea-cliffs

September 23^rd 2012

The continuing adventures of a girl trying to achieve forty things before she hits the grand old age of forty...

 Number 40: See dolphins in Scotland (achieved)

This has been my year of Scottish holidays. It started with a very enjoyable week in a cottage at Glen Shee enjoying good company, log fires, skiing, scrabble and excellent food surrounded by snow covered hills. More recently I spent four days with a friend camping at Glenbrittle experiencing the many moods and climates of beautiful Skye- including a very brave (i.e. freezing) sea dip. Finally the intrepid Jane B and I spent a happy and slightly more luxurious week staying in B&Bs, exploring the East coast and centre of Scotland on our road trip adventure.

   Since having moved to Scotland one of the things I’ve learned to love are the many varied landscapes. From looming high mountains to fishing villages; sandy beaches to peaceful lochs. There are some truly beautiful scenes to enjoy. The added deterrents of midges and weather also ensure they aren’t overrun with tourists! It’s hard not to enjoy being outdoors with such delicious visual titbits to savour. Just be prepared with a rain hat and skin-so-soft/DEET to hand.

   The second thing I love is the incredible variety of wildlife and the relative ease with which you can encounter it. Readers of my column and blog will have already heard stories of bats, puffins and seals. Even driving back from Skye I had a ‘chance encounter’ (read ‘near miss’) with an enormous stag. Awesome. The one animal which has so far eluded me is the dolphin. I’ve been on boats and islands, seen seals and seabirds, but not yet dolphins. Well, that’s not true; I’ve seen them at SeaWorld in Florida doing loop-the-loops and suchlike. But there’s something about seeing them in their natural habitat which inspires me. So when Jane B and I set off in our intrepid steed, Harris the Yaris, to tour Scotland seeing the Moray Firth dolphins was top of my list.

   It nearly didn’t happen. Along our journey we enjoyed culinary delights such as macaroni/mince and tattie pies; saw many castles of varying ruin; walked along lovely beaches; sampled fantastic whisky and were even blessed with hot sunshine and ice cream. In fact the weather was so good that I had taken it for granted the boat trips would be sailing. I hadn’t factored in the wind and change of season. By season I mean tourist rather than weather. Cullen, for example, was closed. The whole of Cullen. Cafes would announce themselves with tempting signs, luring you to a door which announced ‘shut’. Of the four pubs in Cullen two had shut down permanently, one had no food and the other was closed on a Tuesday night. We, of course, arrived on a Tuesday night. We ended up enjoying a chip supper picnic on our beds at the B&B. (Actually this was quite fun.)

   I was very disappointed therefore to hear that the boats wouldn’t be going out until the weekend, by which time we were to have left for Loch Ness. Fortunately our B&B landlord recommended a trip to Fort George where we ‘could not fail’ to see dolphins from the headland. We left for the Fort with mixed feelings. By the time we arrived the sunshine had also shut up shop for the season to be replaced by lashing rain and driving gales. Jane tried to manage my expectations. Undaunted I declared I felt ‘confident’ we would see dolphins. My confident declarations were slightly muffled by my rain hood and strong winds.

   Fort George itself is very interesting. From above it looks a bit like a spaceship and it has an interesting history, having been built to quell a Scottish rebellion that never happened and having served as a working barracks to this day. We followed the stops on the audio tour, pausing for obligatory coffee and cake, then made our way to the optimistically named ‘Dolphin Viewing Point’. We then spent the next half an hour huddled between various battlements peering out over the Moray Firth. Squinting across the choppy water with icy cheeks and rain spitting in your eyes it’s easy to mistake a wave for an emerging fin. It’s like that time we were on Safari in Africa looking for tree climbing lions. ‘There’s one!’ (Tree stump.) ‘That’s definitely one!’ (Rock.)

   I had sort of convinced myself that those grey triangles I could see mid distance could have been dolphins and turned to leave, a little down at heart. Jane B suggested one more try, which was good of her considering she must have been frozen, soaking and bored. With perfect timing we turned to see an elegant fin and smooth back curve out of the water not metres away from us. ‘That’s one! That’s definitely one!’ Sure enough the dolphin repeated his performance, just to make sure we could both see.

  A brief sighting certainly, but a definite and bona fide view of a dolphin in its natural environment. I was stupidly excited and left numb with cold but satisfied.

   I should add my huge thanks to Jane for standing in the rain for so long in order for me to be able to tick this one off my list. Also she is a handy eye witness. Sadly she wasn’t on hand to witness my later sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, but that’s another story...

Number 15: Learn to rock climb properly (still practising... )

   So, as recorded earlier in my blog, I’m not necessarily what you’d call an expert but I’m hugely enjoying the experience of learning to climb. Most recently my colleague Elsie was patient (and brave) enough to take me on my first outdoor climb. It was awesome! Different to the challenge of indoor climbing, using only certain colours as hand and foot holds, the challenge of outdoor climbing is more a case of: ‘Can I get my fingers around that and actually hold my own weight?’ or ‘Can I reach that and not end up with my face in that gorse bush?’  The setting was amazing with the low evening sun shining silver on the Firth of Forth.

   My initial alarm at seeing the sheer sea cliff and Elsie’s friends spiderman-ing up it was allayed when she took me to a lower and easier section around the corner. In just a couple of hours I learned to lead belay, second and remove those clip thingies (gear?) from the rock. For some reason I had little awareness of the height, so involved was I in the challenge of getting my limbs to achieve a few angles previously unfamiliar to them. Ironically I got more vertigo on the drive home over the Forth Bridge.

   Elsie is a proper pro’ and I suspect could have scaled the cliff without the ropes, but she also helped me feel relaxed and confident. After all I’ve only really climbed a couple of times indoors with ropes and enjoyed a few bouldering sessions. This was an altogether different barrel of fish. One thing I noticed was the impressive range of hooks, clips, springs, tools and other paraphernalia that hang from the proper climbers’ harnesses. As we clank and rattle back down the path to the beach Elsie comments that, whilst you get to see some beautiful sunsets, you never do see much wildlife.  

   A brilliant experience and one I hope to enjoy again before too long.