Our Scottish Seaside Vacation

From North Berwick with the Coupland Moores

We spent last week at the seaside in North Berwick with Kristen, Dave and their two children James and Aidan. We'd fallen in love with North Berwick the first time we visited and since the Coupland-Moores had requested a beach vacation while they were in Scotland, we settled on North Berwick. It has everything one could want in a seaside vacation: miles of beach, several castles nearby, walking trails, pubs, cafes, play structures, an eco-education centre, a harbour, stormy weather, sunny weather, surf, tide pools, seabird nesting sites, ice cream and locally-caught fish. In other words, something for everyone, with the added bonus of being only 30 minutes by train from downtown Edinburgh.

The highlight for me (AJW) was the boat trip we took to Bass Rock to see the colony of 150,000 nesting gannets. I remember a family trip to Perce Rock when I was a child to see a gannet colony. The experience left quite an impression, but nothing compared to Bass Rock. Birds wheeling, birds diving, birds chattering away to the little bundles of fluff in their nests. I wish I'd brought my camera but I was afraid of getting it wet in the open boat we took out there: the Sula II. Incidentally, the colony of gannets on Bass Rock was number one on the BBC's Nature's Top 40 show.

We could see Bass Rock from the kitchen window of the cottage we rented. In the evening light, even from several miles away it actually glowed with life. I tried to capture this in photos, click on the photo above to get to my Picasa album.

On another day we walked about 8 km to Dirleton Castle, which was a lovely ruin in a beautiful wooded setting. James and Aidan (6 and 2) did very well on the trek, though James would have been just as happy to end the journey at the playground at Yellowcraigs. Incidentally, playgrounds in this part of the world are pretty fabulous. They are all relatively new, kept in good repair and feature innovative and even risky activities. My favourites elements are a climbing tower that has "banisters" instead of slides to go down and a rope cage that spins around.

The highlight of the trip for Aidan was probably the day we went to East Links Family Park, a large petting zoo with playgrounds and trampolines. Animals are pretty mush his favourite right now. After a couple of hours at the Family Park we took the bus into Dunbar where we went to John Muir's Birth Place Museum, which is a beautiful and inspiring display about his childhood in Dunbar and his environmental activism in the U.S. As someone who studies nature writing, John Muir is a bit of a hero of mine. We also stopped by the fishing harbour to check out the ruins of Dunbar Castle, which at one time actually straddled open water. The castle is now an important nesting site for the Kittiwake gulls. Aidan threw a temper tantrum on the way home when we did not stop again at the East Links Park to see the "Anmos". Like I said, I think that was the highlight for him.

James enjoyed the Scottish Seabird Centre, spending two days there playing in the puffin burrow. The rest of the time was wiled away sitting on the beach, poking around tide pools, watching surfers, cooking, eating and drinking. So a good time was had by all. Even Japhur seemed to like the beach, lots to sniff at and comfortable sand to lie on, not to mention other dogs to watch cavorting in the waves.

In fact the whole experience was lovely enough to give me a fantasy of living in North Berwick next year. I've always rather fancied living by the sea. There doesn't seem much in the way of long-term lets out there, however. So maybe I'll have to wait a bit longer for a seaside life.