Tim wakes at 6, takes a shower and some morning pictures of the sea. The first bird of the day is a gannet diving for fish. At 7:30 he wakes the rest of the family, still vast asleep. We pack our stuff and leave at 9, to Dunnet Head Lighthouse, the most Northern point of the UK mainland.
It’s super windy and not warm, the kids conquer the wind to check-out the views, but are nearly blow from the steep cliffs, and hide in the car. Tim checks the bird life with his telescope lens. He spots many different sea gulls and sees fast flapping birds flying from and to the cliffs, they are probably guillemots. On his way back to car he checks his photos and zooms in on one of the small birds, it has an orange bill, so it’s no guillemot but a puffin.
So he grabs a new battery and heads back to the cliffs to get a better view, there is a unprotected path along the cliff edge from where you have a view of the cliffs themselves. After some searching he spots more nesting puffins between all the sea gulls and guillemots. Olga also comes and to take a look before we go.
Next is Duncansby Stacks, a tip of Tante Els. Here are some beautiful stacks in the sea and more high cliffs. The cliffs are filled with nesting kittiwakes and the smell is terrible. The bird sounds echo against the cliff, and that sound is vert funny. There are also some shags and a lot of guillemots. Then Tim spots two small birds fighting it’s a puffin being chased by a guillemot. Nearby is a nesting pair of puffins and there is a solo one hiding near a bush.
The collection of pyramid shaped sea stacks jut out of the North Sea against the backdrop of more stunning cliffs. They were formed by tidal erosion over time and they have stood here for over 6000 years.
Back in the car we’re all glad to be out of the wind and decide to drive south and skip the ruins along the coast. It’s a slow drive as the road is busy and there are a lot of lorries and busses slowing the pace.
At 15.00 we arrive at Chanonry Point opposite Fort George on the other side of the Moray Firth. Last year when we visited Fort George we saw dolphins jumping in front of this beach so we hope for something similar this time. The moment Tim walks onto the beach the first botllenose dolphins show themselves in the distance. We’re in for a treat, there are a dozen of them swimming in smaller pairs, some are far away, others are just meters from the beach.
We see a lot of dorsal fins and an occasional fluke, but then a dolphins breaches, rotating sideways entirely out of the water. He does this three times in a row. We stay for more and everytime we think we’ve seen it all more dolphins join in and play together. When Tim finnaly gets a shot of a dolphin jumping in front of the fort we call it a day and head to our holiday home.
Just before we reach the Lidl we’re passed by a firetruck. We see smoke rising in the distance, as we get closer we see that it’s a lorry on fire. Multiple firetrucks are there to get the fire under control but the lidl car park is closed. So we change destination get some quick groceries for tonight and head to our caravan.
It’s not cold anymore, but still we celebrate the beds, toilet, shower, kitchen and couch. We’re lucky to have a caravan at the very end of the park, with direct access to a nice forest. There’s also access to a sandy beach and a play ground. We’ll stay here for four nights.
