Common Seal.

Today was a brilliant day, it just didn’t go to plan. The intention was to drive out to the seal hotspot at Port Gordon and do a stitched panorama of the basking seals but, when I arrived the tide was completely covering the rocks. However, I climbed over the sea defences and settled down out of the wind and about a dozen seals swam over to investigate me before returning to the business in hand.

It took a few moments to realise what they were doing. They would settle on a rock, still covered in water, and the first wave would knock them off; then they would clamber back only to be knocked off again. They were like holiday-makers on the Costa who go out before breakfast and place their towels on the best spots on the beach to stake their claims. It was, as is so much in the natural world, a hierarchy thing. I did wonder what damage the rocks did to their soft underbellies.

It was then back to Cullen to walk along the coastal path towards Findlater Castle, I was hoping for a picture of it from a new angle but ran out of time before reaching it. There is loads of wildlife, both flora and fauna, as well as plenty of archaeological interest which includes, at Logie Head, the Giant’s Steps. Local man Tony Hetherington somehow manoeuvred enormous blocks of quartzite into this amazing feature in 1985, single-handedly and without lifting gear or mechanical aids; during the six months he took to complete his task, he maintained a vow of silence. He died in a canoeing accident in 1993 in his early 40s and is commemorated by a cairn and plaque at the foot of the steps. The steps provide a safe, but still slightly scary, path around a rock favoured by climbers. The first extra is of the cairn with some of the steps behind it, the second is of a couple of climbers taken fem the steps.