(I think I’ve visited all if not most of the lighthouses along the Aberdeenshire coastline, but please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m always up for visiting a new lighthouse!)
From North to South here are the five lighthouses of Aberdeenshire.
1. Kinnaird Head
Kinnaird Head has been through many changes. It originally started life as a castle, built for the Fraser family in the 1500s but in 1787 a huge lamp was placed on the roof of the castle making it the first lighthouse built by the Northern Lighthouse Board. By 1824 the famous Robert Stevenson had built a foundation, walls and a classic spiral staircase through the middle of the castle (whilst still preserving the original structure). Now, it’s an excellent museum. Although it’s no longer operational the light mechanism of the lighthouse is still in working order and it looks very much like it did when the last crew left. It’s a pretty remarkable place and even if maritime history isn’t normally your thing, it’s hard not to be wowed by the lives of the lighthouse keepers.
2. Rattray Head
Rattray head is iconic. If you’ve seen an Aberdeenshire lighthouse then it’s probably this one. Rattray head is normally surrounded by the cold North sea, but it can be reached at low tide (although this is something I haven’t been able to do yet). It’s iconic for a good reason as it’s incredibly photogenic, especially when it’s blowing a hooley and the waves are violently battering the lighthouse. Rattray head was built in 1895 and within 100 years in 1982 the last lighthouse keepers were withdrawn and the light became fully automatic.
Be forewarned that it’s not the easiest track to reach it so if your vehicle has low ground clearance or you’re rubbish at reversing you might want to re-think it!
3. Buchan Ness
Buchan Ness is a stunning red and white lighthouse situated in a lovely coastal town called Boddam just South of Peterhead. It was originally built in 1827 by Robert Stevenson and is now fully automated, sounding it’s last foghorn in 1988. The lighthouse keepers cottages are now privately owned and you can book a stay in them if you fancy a quirky holiday. I’ve never been myself but they have great reviews.
4. Girdle Ness
Girdle Ness is my local lighthouse, seeing as it’s located in the city of Aberdeen. It was built in 1833 by, you guessed it, Robert Stevenson after the wrecking of whaling ship that saw 43 out of 45 of it’s crew members die. The light is now fully automated since 1991. It overlooks the stunning Greyhope bay which is a great spot to look out for dolphins and watch the standby and supply vessels come in and out of harbour.
Just in front of the lighthouse is an old fog horn which no longer sounds. It’s known locally as the ‘Torry coo that doesn’t moo’ (Torry being the part of the city the lighthouse backs onto).
5. Todhead
I guess the first and most important thing to say about Todhead lighthouse is that it is now a private residence so it’s important to respect that. There is no access up the lighthouse, although you can walk around it and soak in the beautiful scenery along the coastline. There’s also a facebook page run by the current owners that’s kept fairly up to date. A light first shone through Todhead in 1897, it was automated in 1988 and then fully decommissioned in 2007.
For further information, particularly about how the lighthouses fared in the war, the Northern Lighthouse Board has a great website.
I think this was the start of the COVID-19 tipping point for me. Everything had been more or less ‘business as usual’ before. My boyfriend was supposed to be meeting me up in Nairn for us to spend the weekend together before I finished the last two weeks of my internship in Raigmore hospital. But, as a diabetic he’s in an ‘at risk’ category for the virus and was concerned (understandably) about being on a busy train…so, he didn’t come. We had had our first positive case in the community but I considered the risk and it seemed a little early, up in the Highlands, for me not to jump on a 20 minute train to a place where I would be predominantly alone for the weekend. So, I went!
14th March
I already had all my important picnic and Perk donut supplies before I arrived in Nairn which meant that I could head straight off on my walk. No messing around!
I walked from the train station to the harbour where I was greeted by a tonne of redshank (pretty little wading birds with red legs) and a turnstone (another pretty little wading bird!). I wandered passed the harbour and along the harbour wall to stare at the sea for a bit and figure out that the land in front of me belonged to the Black Isle.
I carried on along the beach to RSPB Culbin Sands where I found a delightful, pretty much undamaged, conch shell and watched a pair of bar tailed godwits and a load of black headed gulls. I kept walking until I could cross a little river onto the salt marsh next to Culbin Forest. I’ve been trying to wrack my brains but I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where the forest has met the beach in quite the same way before. The forest comes to the edge of the cliffs between Aberystwyth and Clarach in West Wales and the woods follow the clifftop walk around the Robin Hoods Bay area in North Yorkshire but it’s different. It just seemed super magical for the forest to meet the saltmarsh and then for that to become sandy beach.
I decided that as I was on my own, and for once didn’t really want to be, I’d cheer myself up by finding a few geocaches in Culbin Forest. Geocaching is like an adult treasure hunt! All over the place and all around the world are hidden caches. Some are magnetic and look like a little blunt bullet and others are big boxes. They all have paper inside where you can write your name and the date you found the cache but the bigger ones have toys or trackers inside that you can take and swap. If you take a tracker you can log it and move it to another geocache around the world and see where it has travelled. To find them you just have to sign up for the geocaching app and that tells you roughly where they are. There’s often a hint if you’re struggling and sometimes, if you really can’t find the cache, pictures and comments from other geocachers. The general idea is that its all a bit of a secret and that you don’t want somebody (especially a ‘muggle’) to know that you’re geocaching, which makes it difficult when you’re searching for a tiny cache in the middle of a busy city!
I found two in Culbin forest.
I was knackered after my walk about in the forest so I headed to check in to my Airbnb. I dropped my things, sat down for a while and then went out to buy food and bubble bath because I can never pass up the opportunity to get in the tub.
So, I noticed when I was mooching about the kitchen that the sponge was really old and well used and that there was half a bottle of sour milk in the fridge plus old bread and eggs in the cupboard. I thought it was a little gross but I shrugged it off because I thought maybe it was an environmental choice. When I got back I couldn’t get any of the electric wall heaters to work but I shrugged that off too because I guessed I’d just figure it out later. I tried to run a hot bath but there wasn’t enough hot water. I boiled water on the stove and in the kettle, but because the air temperature was so cold I couldn’t heat water quick enough to offset the bath cooling! I stayed in there all of 10 seconds before I decided it was just too sad. When I got out I also made more of a concerted effort to get the heating going but actually none of the power sockets worked, I couldn’t find anything that would resemble a ‘master switch’ and there was no welcome book or instructions to follow. The place was freezing. There was no hot water bottle or blankets and by this point it felt to late to be messaging the host to ask for help, so I just wore my scarf hat and down jacket inside! What I did find when I was searching about was just how dusty everything was. There was even a sad face drawn in the dust in the bedroom. The whole place wasn’t actually that clean. I think the nice décor had fooled me! I heated up my microwave curry and ate it wondering when was too early to go to bed. When I did decide to go to bed and I pulled the covers back there were hairs on the pillows and in the bed. Fucking grim. It makes me wonder whether they bothered changing the sheets or whether they just made the bed again. I put my t-shirt (which was dusty because I dropped it on the bathroom floor) over the pillow and laid the frayed and holey towel where I was going to sleep. I slept in my down jacket and hat but I still felt a bit grossed out anyway! If I’d have noticed these things earlier I would have just gone home to the Raigmore!
I fell asleep to the sounds of drunk people buying kebabs outside my window and woke up at 5.45 am to the sound of a persistent car alarm. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough!
I obviously left an extensive review with my host and a more measured, less defamatory public review but I haven’t heard back from the lady yet. All I can say is stay somewhere other than the Royal Apartments in central Nairn!
15th March
In the morning I headed to the Basil Harbour Café for a breakfast of ‘eggy bread’, bacon, maple syrup and a much needed cappuccino. In hindsight it probably wasn’t a good call in terms of social distancing but it was all still very much a grey area at that point and it was only just creeping in to Northern Scotland. The breakfast was super good though! My plan was to walk to Whiteness Point, West of Nairn, using the ‘Walk Highlands’ inland route and then return along the beach. The walk inland was ‘nice’, I saw my first skylark of the year, singing. It was fine, but it was long and a little relentless. There weren’t any wow moments and it actually got to a point on the beach where I could see the point but decided it wasn’t actually worth walking to it!
When I looked up the beach towards Nairn the thought of walking 4 – 5 miles (ish) along pebbles and sand just seemed brutal so I decided to walk along the same inland route I arrived on. There were three geocaches along the route so I thought ‘why not?’, it made it more interesting.
By the time I got back to Nairn I was knackered so I picked up another Cappuccino from Basil and then headed to the station early.
It definitely wasn’t my greatest mini-adventure but I was glad to get lots of fresh air before the inevitable COVID lock down and I managed to walk over 15 miles on the last day which must be more than I’ve managed to walk in years. So, that’s something!
In A Kingdom By The Sea 