https://www.seabird.org/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

It’s held its position as No1 spot in the country to live and I’ve had a bit of a history with Scotland’s best North Berwickety.

Of course, I’d little interest in the future when I holidayed with my cousins as a kid in East Lothian 50 years ago.

Or what half a century’s time would look like.

Well, the golf course which frames the burgh is untouched since my early thrashings there.

Marine life

On the right course: North Berwick Golf Club

And the grand Marine Hotel, the scene of my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary, looks out on the golfers’ efforts.

What the Marine guests would have made of the eight-year-old lad’s attempts at the Royal & Ancient Game is anyone’s guess.

But it was an achievement in itself that I was allowed to complete the course after hitting said cousin around the head with my backswing.

I walk North Berwick Golf Course every day now since being moved back to Scotland after 13 years an Irishman.

With Herself locating us to within spitting distance of the Outlaws.

Birds and birdies

I scream for ice cream: The Daughterie outside the Seabird Centre

Today’s North Berwickety, my nickname, on account of its retirement home reputation, retains its old Scots coastal town image.

But like many coastal towns old shops have given way to cafes and kerching shops.

The most scenic being in the Seabird Centre which looks out onto Bass Rock.

Home to thousands of gannets whose poo gives it its white colour.

And you can sign up for a boat tour out to the rock and Fidra island from the harbour.

Now if you’re a hiker North Berwickety is right up your street, on the John Muir trail (ask an American as he’s the father of their national parks).

Or climb the Law, the old Scottish name for hill, which may be only 650ft but is rocky and challenging.

Catch of the day

Getting the band back together: The Blues Brothers in tow

Pubs may be a bit staid but The Ship Inn on Quality Street serves good fish and is a good stop-off after your walk and quieter around lunch.

Of the famous people who have taken the air in North Berwickety, well you’re reading him, of course.

But equally former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has taken up residence here.

While former Ryder Cup captain Catriona Matthew is a proud daughter of and clubmaker Ben Sayers hailed from the toon too.

As does Rory Farge, Scotland rugby co-captain.

Me and Robert Louis Stevenson

Window shopping: Herself checking out dresses

Robert Louis Stevenson holidayed here and there is a pictorial tribute to the Treasure Island writer on the main street.

And if it’s good enough for those illuminaries it’s good enough for us all.

Now here’s hoping that we pull off a threepeat for next year on the Times list.

And in the meantime I’ll carry on adding to my bit of a history with Scotland’s best North Berwickety.

Countries, UK

North Berwick the best of British

15th March 202415th March 2024 funtime65

Now it would be remiss not to credit the wee toon I now inhabit and the award bestowed, North Berwick the best of British.

Or the woman who brought me here to live among the outlaws and told me I would die here.

The Sunday Times, no less, has put NB top of their list of 72 destinations of best places to live.

The newspaper flags up the way life revolves around the town’s beaches.

As well as the wealth of activities, whatever someone’s age.

You might have heard, of course, NB blow-in Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, extolling its virtues on Times Radio.

From the overpriced Herringbone Restaurant where Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, to give her high-falutin title, held court.

Talking about her town from a private room, well away from the Great Unwashed.

NB till I die: And she’s prepping my plot

It should be said here that NB has always been popular with retirees.

And it’s not for nothing that the main street is nicknamed ‘The Olden Mile’.

The plot thickens: Helping in the garden

The newspaper also highlighted the thriving independent shops.

As a sign of the positive effect small businesses have on a community.

Train sights on NB

All of which may prick your curiosity to jump on the train from Edinburgh Waverley for the half an hour trip out west.

So what will you find when you get out here?

Well, said beaches and three links golf courses.

North Berwick GC, parallel to The Olden Mile and the West Beach, the Glen and Tantallon.

And the grand Marine Hotel where you can avail of its R&R, G&T (other cocktails are available).

And putt yourself on their front lawn.

While for a more bijou accommodation then No 12 on the aptly-named Quality Street is a buzz of activity.

Around Signals Bistro on account of its rail track and carriages on its skirting board.

Sport your local town

Our nearest watering hole, the Fly Half at the Nether Bay Hotel on the arterial Dirleton Road, is busiest around sports days.

And rugby days when the hosts will serve up warming Scotch pies at half time.

To soak up the ales, and do sample the Augustus Caesar.

A Royal Burgh since 1373 when Robert II granted it the right to levy the king’s customs duties.

With a ‘tron’ for weighing wool and a ‘tronar’ operator.

And it still retains those underlying monarchist affections.

With older residents happy to put out the Union flag bunting (that’s you Royalist Roy) at the drop of a hat.

Muir the merrier

NB is a trekker’s go-to with the John Muir Way running through it.

Up to the relics of Tantallon Castle and down to Dirleton.

Admiring as you go the verdant town centre, dressed for you by our Green-Fingered One and her Britain in Bloom winners.

NB too is a twitchers’ headquarters with the Seabird Centre offering unrivalled views of the Bass Rock.

Which you can go out and visit on boat tour parties.

To see the biggest collection of gannets around on the rock.

Gone fishing

For the gannet in you NB is well-served for restaurants.

And if you like your meal straight out of the sea we would recommend the Rocketeer in front of the Seabird Centre.

While there is also an inviting hut and eating area, the Lobster Shack, down by the old fishermen holds.

Where local artisans set up stall and sell their wares.

Fringe benefits

NB has a timeless quality to it but despite its reputation as a retirement home there is life Jim.

Particularly around Edinburgh Festival time when it puts on Fringe By The Sea.

Where Texas and Sister Sledge have performed in the past.

And this year The Jacksons will rock up.

So don’t blame it on the sunshine, not guaranteed as this is the East of Scotland.

North Berwick the best of British makes up for that in so many other ways.

The annual Sunday Times guide, sponsored by mortgage lender Halifax, also named 10 regional winners.

Including Clerkenwell in London, Abergavenny in Wales and Portstewart in Northern Ireland.

Africa, Caribbean, Countries, UK

Counting crows and other feathered friends

29th January 202329th January 2023 funtime65

And there my knowledge of the San Fran rockers ends and my knowledge of birdwatching begins as I go counting crows and other feathered friends.

The weekend that’s in it is the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch.

And so twitchers up and down Britain and those who flock (sorry) or nest (soz again) here from abroad have been getting their binos out.

The ornithologist in our family is, of course, the tweet Mrs M.

And she has spotted, and chronicled, more birdies than I’ve had hot dinners – not that I’m advising eating any of them.

Apart from maybe pigeons, it’s the only way to shut the ‘rats with wings’ up.

Save our birds

There is though a very serious side to this weekend.

Shockingly 38 million birds have been lost from British skies in the last 50 years,

And no feather-brains our twitchers with last year almost 700,000 people taking part in Big Garden Birdwatch.

If you’ve not already done so you have until 9pm tonight to spend just one hour to twitch.

Probably best in the morning but if you haven’t already then you can always pop outside after the football.

Centre of featherness

Where then is best? Well, here where we are is probably as good a place as any, North Berwick, east of Edinburgh.

Where golf (maybe it’s the birdies) and gulls are put on pedestals.

And an everyman twitcher takes pride of place by the Seabird Centre, looking out through his binos to Bass Rock.

Where once Robert Louis Stevenson, who would holiday in North Berwick, would look out to the lighthouse his brother David designed.

Bass Rock, only housing the Northern gannet colony in the world.

Once home to a hermit, a castle and a prison now the gannets have marked their territory.

In a very distinctive manner, the smell of which hots you in the back of the throat as you near the rock.

Not that that should put you off, the spectacle more than making up for the odour.

Bass class

The Seabird Centre offers a Bass Rock trip for £140pp including landing fee.

The east coast of Scotland is, of course, a long long way from the East Cape of South Africa.

But just as choppy (no pain, no gain) and best not negotiated after a night on the booze.

Not a problem, of course, for the furry kind with this Raggy Charters mascot leading from the front on their tours out.

To the hub for blue-finned dolphins and penguins in the Southern Hemisphere.

I’ve not been back on such choppy waters since but am requisitioned by my own tweet ornithologist for Bass Rock this year.

Wagtail hour

Birdwatching then can be as sedentary or as adventurous as you like.

And I do prefer the birdies to come to me like they did in Tobago.

Maybe just start with an hour chronicling today and then recording your findings on the RSPB website.

Me, I’ll start by counting crows and other feathered friends.

And leave the big stuff to the happy snappy Mrs M.

America, Countries, Europe, Oceania, UK

North South Seas and Treasure Island

17th August 2021 funtime65

So what do the North Sea South Seas and Treasure Island share in common?

The author Robert Louis Stevenson who I’ve got to know these last 18 months.

Since moving to North Berwick, south of Edinburgh.

Where his grandfather, the eminent Scottish engineer of his time (also Robert) made his mark.

Robert’s piece de resistance was the Bell Rock, the world’s oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse, built on an outcrop of the Inchcape reef and accessible at low tide.

Young Robert might have expected to follow in the family lighthouse design business.

The real Treasure Island

Robert Louis (originally Lewis) though did base his Treasure Island on the Fidra Island in the Firth of Forth.

Where David and Thomas Stevenson built theirs which has been automated since 1970.

And which the Scottish Seabird Centre has its cameras set on to keep an eye on its seabird population.

Travel bug

It was here then that Robert got his Travel bug which would see him circumnavigate the globe.

Stevenson’s love of Travel was both lyrical and practical as he sought warmer climes more conducive to his bronchial problems.

And he would say: ‘We are all travellers in the wilderness of this world.’

That and. his marriage to American Fanny Van De Grift led to him seeking out many of the familiar, but also the wildernesses of this world.

Travel books

Samoa the merrier: A recreation of RLS’s rooms in Western Samoa

And so he gave us a rich legacy of Travel books as well as his bumper fiction books.

With his entry into this world showing what a master he was with his 200km hike in south-central France, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.

A passion we both share for Southern France and hiking. And Robert was to return to France and Belgium for another venture, canoeing this time, in An Inland Voyage.

The Amateur Emigrant, Across the Plains and the Silverado Squatters covers RLS’s American peregrinations and there is a museum there too in the Napa Valley in California.

And then we get In the South Seas, a celebration of Samoa where he set down roots and lived out his days.

RLS truly loved the South Seas island of Samoa and championed their rights in the face of exploitation from the super powers in letters to The Times.

In RLS’s footsteps

And the West Samoans loved him back erecting a museum to the man they called Tusitala ‘Tale Teller’ on the 100th anniversary of his death in 1994.

Check out their excellent site with its Following in the Footsteps of RLS.

Western Samoa is a three and a half hours flight from Auckland, New Zealand.

So let’s hear if for North South Seas and Treasure Island.

Tag: https://www.seabird.org/

Bit of a history with Scotland’s best North Berwickety