Seasides, harbours and beaches, oh my

Some people collect castles, some collect tartan ties and some collect restaurants. We collect seaside villages.

Exploring castles and noble houses is a great way to explore Britain and Ireland's history and glory, and we enjoy, have done and will do more of it. We do find, however, that when you have visited a few castles, both decorated and ruined, and a few ancient palaces and mansions and realized that Mary Queen of Scots or Robert the Bruce or one of the King James' lived in or visited them, well, then they do start to blur together a little.

On the other hand, coming from Utah, we have not yet come close to getting tired of seeing, smelling, and walking along the seaside. So instead of collecting castles, which others have done, we have decided to collect seaside towns and villages. we are not doing this systematically or with any intent of writing a book, or drawing up a catalog, but just casually, either intentionally or by 'thistling'.

'Thistling' is also something we invented, or perhaps discovered. As we drive along on a P-day we will spot the touristy signboards. They are brown and many of them have a thistle symbol to indicate they are official tourist destinations. So as we're driving along if we see something interesting (signposted or not), we turn off and explore. We've had several happy experiences and keep our eyes open for thistles as we go.

So far we have explored a bunch of seaside towns in semi-random order, although we will mention them here in some kind of geographic listing.

We've travelled to most of them down the south east Lothian Coast, which means directly east of Edinburgh and then trickling down the coastline heading south.

Starting directly east of us is Portobello Beach, where we see hundreds of dogs and their attendant ball-throwers. We were also first introduced to Scottish-style sea bathing at Portobello, which is where children in warm coats and long pants roll up their trouser legs and splash their toes in the cold North Sea, while their parents stay warm, dry and fully clothed on the beach, waiting to dry them off and take them for hot chocolate. In fairness this was in very early Spring and we have seen people actually swimming in June and July, but not many--and the ocean has never warmed enough to actually tempt us into it. Richard has actually gone so far as occasionally to touch the water with his fingers; Louise just gazes appreciatively from a safe distance.

Anyway, heading down the coast the roll-call of small towns follows on: Musselburgh, Prestonpans, where the monks used to have salt-making pans (Priest-Town-Pans), then to Longniddrie, and Aberlady. Did you know that 'Aber' is a river mouth, So Aberdeen is where the Dee meets the sea, Aberlady, unfortunately, comes from Obar Lobhtach meaning 'Rotten River mouth' (I guess the nomenclative journey from 'Lobtach' to 'Lady' is a short one under the circumstances.)

Next comes North Berwick--famous for its ice-cream which we didn't try, quite a large town. Oh, and that's pronounced "Berrick", not "Burr-wick" ye meeserable ootlander!

Then there's Tantalon Castle, almost falling into the sea, where King James V was kept prisoner as a teenager by his stepfather. This is not a town just an isolated castle with a view of the Bass Rock Island, which was also used as a prison, to cheer one up. You can understand why King James V came back later and besieged the castle, pounding it and his stepfather with large rocks and making some lovely big holes in the castle walls.

Just a few miles south is Dunbar with a completely wrecked castle. They also have a fishing harbour which is definitely a working port; it smells richly of the fishing industry. This is also home to the colony of Kittiwakes that we were not allowed to feed. It is also where the  Dunbar Battery has such commanding views of the nearby coastline, including the Isle of May and Bass Rock (again). The battery was intended to defend against attacks from uppity revolting American colonists in 1776. This was not entirely a fantasy. There was one attack on the British mainland by an American ship. It was not very successful as an attack, but it did disturb the complacency of the British--thus the battery.

Further south we come to Coldingham, which isn't quite on the coast but had a nice art gallery with some interesting sculpture in wire for sale--but not quite interesting enough to be worth the effort of transporting it back to Provo. Close by is St Abbs, another tiny fishing harbour. And finally we come to Eyemouth and that's as far south as we go without crossing the border into England.

We have also ventured to the West coast to the beach near Ardrossan ferry port which consisted mostly of sea shells. The beach, not the ferry port.

Travelling south down the west coast we came to Saltcoats with its long, very high sea wall. We gazed out, west as we thought, over the Irish sea, and thought we could spot Ireland, so asked a man who seemed very much at home there. It turns out we weren't facing west at all and all we were looking at was a headland south of us, but we fell into conversation and he told us a little about his life doing search and rescue. He had just been called to retrieve a dead body, and was having a quiet smoke before he left. He described the job as being very hard, but worthwhile for the closure it gave the families of the dead.

And then, way down south as far south as one can go in the west and still remain in Scotland, is lovely Stranraer, just a few miles south of Cairnryan, where we catch the ferry for Ireland.

We will not soon tire of beaches and views of the water.  We still remember crossing the Tay Bridge over the Firth of Forth at sunrise, surely one of the most beautiful sights either of us has ever seen.

One of our young missionaries mentioned Arbroath Smokies to us one day, while we were visiting/inspecting his flat. That was sufficient excuse for us to travel north the next Saturday up the (East) coast into the highlands to visit the harbour and the fish smoking shops there, and buy some of their wares. Having tried Arbroath smokies once, we will not try them again. Think of them as very tasty collections of thin, sharp bones.

On our way to Arbroath, we stopped at a seaside village called Monifierth. We walked for a way along the beach and noticed several elderly people collecting litter, with a garbage bag and a nice grabber (litter-picker-upper) so they did not have to bend down or actually touch the litter. The whole thing seemed both relaxed and well organized We fell into conversation with a very friendly lady who told us that picking up litter is a monthly service project they do. She told us a little bit about life in the community, and invited us to move there. It really seems like a lovely little town, with lots of community spirit and activities. She also told us about a lovely little town further up the coast called Auchenwithy, with an interesting place to have lunch and a truly amazing beach consisting largely of green jasper.

So after visiting Arbroath and the Abbey there, we decided to head for Auchenwithy.  We found ourselves in a tiny little hamlet at the top of a cliff, with no amenities that we could see and a narrow track that a four wheel drive vehicle or an extremely energetic human could use to make one's way down to the beach. We were curious about the jasper, but not curious enough to make the journey, We turned the car around (there was only one road through the town and it was a dead end) and went home. We noticed a bus stop as we left the town, and wondered for a moment where in that town a bus could turn around, then realised that there was a turning circle for a small bus right by the bus stop.

We will continue to collect, in the loosest sense, seaside villages, and we will continue to converse with locals whenever we can. We always try to introduce the Church into our conversations, but only push gently. We very rarely get to the point of inviting them to church or to hear the missionary discussions but we almost always learn something interesting about the local town and people there.