…on Dunbar shores.
4 August 2026: Quiet at day’s end, after the excitement of Tantallon. It’s not a classic sunset evening, but there’s some interesting light where the Firth of Forth merges into the North Sea.
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4 August 2026: A splendid ruin on the East Lothian clifftops, just a couple of miles to the east of North Berwick. It’s a great place to explore, with dark spiral staircases and unexpected rooms. The views over the coast are great, especially that of the Bass Rock, white with many thousands of gannets. However, I suspect the best views of the castle are from a little way off…
Explorations over, we have to visit North Berwick. The sun is coming out, and it’s beginning to feel warm – the ice creams are just what’s required. A little later, we’re heading back to Dunbar – and a sunny spotlight is lighting Tantallon across the golden cornfields, a spectacular inverse silhouette against the dark seas and sky beyond (yes, the best views are from a little way off…) Moments later the spotlight has moved off the castle (and there was nowhere to stop for a photo), but the image is etched into memory…
Tantallon Castle – Historic Scotland
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Sunday 2 August: I’m taking a break on the long journey north, visiting a steam railway and museum just beyond the northern exit from the Tyne Tunnel. It may be the North Tyneside Steam Railway; it may be the Stephenson Steam Railway. It seems to have been both at some stage. This may be a reflection of its history, its track laid on the route of several historic waggonways and the former Blyth and Tyne Railway, and more recently, in 1973, a test track for the Metro, then in development.
Whatever its history, the ride, though short (2 miles each way) is pleasant and surprisingly rural, lined with greenery for much of the way. Journey over, a visit to the museum proves to be very rewarding – a well set-up and well-displayed collection of unexpectedly interesting exhibits. Worth another visit, I reckon…
North Tyneside Steam Railway
Stephenson Steam Railway
I had a leg stretch earlier today, kicking my heels around the warm streets Shrewsbury while the car was serviced… It’s still warm in the evening, and I need a breath of fresh air too (not that Shrewsbury is particularly polluted). It’s not just warm – it’s quite humid, and there’s not a breath of wind. I’ll create my own breeze if I keep moving.
The clearance of fallen timber from the December ’24 storms is under way at Shirlett; away from the timber piles, the helleborines, now in flower, are struggling on, though it needs a burst of light from the flashgun to reveal the colour in these somewhat dowdy wild orchids. There’s colour in the western sky too, when I return to the car. What a difference an hour makes!
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Even the route of this short wander is vaguely butterfly-shaped! There are speckled woods on Round Hill. A little further on, the woods are being taken away (more victims of the storm of December 2024?). Continuing along the Smithies and on up to Nordley Common, there are butterflies everywhere. The breeze is making them restless, but there are sufficient posers for a photo or two, especially on a patch of fleabane, which they all seem to enjoy. There are gatekeepers, meadow browns, red admirals – and a couple of those eye-catching common blues (not the easiest to photograph – even if they land, they’re rarely still for long). Just as well, because otherwise there’s very little colour in the landscape. That will come with autumn, just over a month away now.
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Things are ripening fast! The harvest has begun, though the fields of wheat around Willey haven’t been touched yet. Any time now, I suspect – they’re a lovely golden colour. Meanwhile, the blackberries at the foot of Bould Lane were looking good too (they were delicious!).
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Wednesday evening 22 July: It’s only a few days since we last walked this way. Not many changes to see, though a distant field of wheat (or barley) now appears to be a candlewick bedspread. It’s still quite hazy, it’s cool under the trees, and again there’s no-one else around.
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A pleasantly warm summer’s evening – good to be out, but nothing energetic… We’re revisiting Boldings pools, this time taking the slightly longer route up the field to the old school, leaving the pools to the last few yards. The harvest has begun – completed, by the look of it, around here. All that remains is dozens of big bales of straw. In the first field, they’re all arrayed in lines; elsewhere randomly scattered, most of them glowing in the evening light.
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Down the quiet hidden footpaths, just yards from the Ironbridge Road, to the footbridge by the Boat Inn, and over the Severn to the china museum. “We can sit under a big brolly outside the YHA café and enjoy something from the freezer”.
If the café is open, that is. But it’s not. We can only assume they’re waiting until the china museum, now in the hands of the National Trust, reopens. Soon?
Happily, there’s a chalked sign offering ice creams and the like at the Boat (a pint would have been most enjoyable, but I’d have been fast asleep by teatime!). So, with a couple of Cornettos on a bench in the pub garden, we enjoy a few quiet minutes and prepare for the pull back up through the Dingle, which is also refreshingly cool on this increasingly warm afternoon.
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Tuesday and Wednesday: a walk in the shade on Wenlock Edge, and Boldings Pools – the light grows warmer as the heat fades. On both outings, we’re on our own – no-one else around. The orchids on the Edge have gone without trace; a red kite circles above the pools, a silhouette never quite in camera range.
The Edge:
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Boldings:
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