North Haven

NORTH HAVEN

The North-East corner of Scotland is rich in places of interest and one of the most popular is the Bullers of Buchan. Thousands of tourists and Birdwatchers visit the Bullers every year particularly in late Spring and early Summer, to view the towering cliffs and study the great variety of sea-birds.

Leaving their car or bus in the car park, visitors walk through the tiny village and follow the cliff-top path to look down in awe into the Bullers Pot which features in most Tourists Guides and is vividly described in Dr Johnson’s “Northern Tour”. Those visitors who follow a strict timetable and many seem to do so, go no further and return to the car park to speed off to the next place of interest mentioned in the guide book. Those who take time to follow the path further will find much of interest as the path leads along the cliff edge and eventually emerges on to the main road two or three hundred yards from the car park.

Dunnythagert is the next promontory beyond the Bullers Pot. Here the cliff face is alive with thousands of sea birds, filling the air with their strident calls. The kittywakes are the most vociferous as their cries of “kitte-e-wake” repeated interminably, re-echo back and fore along the cliff face. Shags, solemn and erect, seem to be oblivious of the noise and commotion around them. Guillemots and razor-bills, with their white dickies like little penguins, are almost indistinguishable from each other apart from the shape of their bills. A few puffins, the “clowns” of the sea, are noticeable with their brightly coloured beaks shining during the breeding season. They nest in burrows on a grassy slope and can be seen enjoying the rays of the setting sun at the mouth of the burrow. Meanwhile the common gulls keep gliding and swooping above.

There is continuously some movement among the birds, some gliding down to water level to form living rafts on the surface to feed, others flying back to their nesting sites, the auks i.e. guillemots, razorbills and puffins, seeming to find this manoeuvre difficult with their short stumpy wings.

Picture: William Burnett

Further along the cliff top the path turns left and here it crosses the remains of a number of trenches. These had been dug about a thousand years ago to guard a narrow path to the next promontory, Blockie Head, the site of a Danish camp. The site is about an acre in extent and is surrounded by a low turf embankment. Here the many raiding parties of Danes who plagued the Scottish coast during the tenth century, would have found safety when raiding in the neighbourhood. Welcome relief came to the Scots when the main Danish force was routed at the battle of Croch Dane in 1012 on the Links at Cruden Bay. This brought an end to the Danish raids. The possibility, of course, is that the turf embankment might have been thrown up comparatively recently when the turf was skimmed off the top to allow potatoes to be grown by the locals. At other places along the coast there are examples of parts of the cliff top being cultivated as at Dundonnie near Boddam.
But, then, no gardener would think of digging a trench to guard his potatoes.

When the fulmars are mating two birds sit on the nest stretching their necks and swinging their heads from side to side, all the time making loud, growling, chuckling sounds through gaping beaks. A third fulmar may accompany the courting couple in the nest, completing the “Eternal Triangle” and joining in the croaking chorus.

Rafts of eiders can be seen on the water far below, the drakes with their bright plumage always seeming to outnumber the ducks. A few shags sail around like little boats, their necks erect like tall masts. On a calm, clear day a bird can be kept in sight deep down as it dives to feed. A seal will suddenly appear out of the water its head only to be seen. After turning its head in all directions like the periscope of a submarine it sinks silently out of sight without disturbing the calm surface of the water.

The shore at the top end of the cove is heaped high with boulders, some about the shape and size of a football but most much larger. These boulders have come from the quarries which were worked at one time along the cliffs to the North. After blasting in the quarries, the rocks which were of no use were dumped into the sea. The tides rolled them along the sea bottom and deposited them at North Haven and other inlets along the coast. The fact that bore holes can be seen in some of the boulders indicate they have come from quarries.

The heaped up boulders make it impossible now for boats to use the shore, but there are ample signs that boats had worked from here at one time. The last fisherman who had a boat and used North Haven was John Sinclair who lived in the nearby hamlet. He worked as a salmon fisher part of the year and had a small boat of his own use. He knew every yard of the coast in the neighbourhood and his knowledge of happenings this century was first hand. He died in 1975 at the ripe old age of ninety three.

Picture: William Burnett

The path along the cliff top meets the path from the shore near the narrow brick lined bridge under the embankment which carried the old railway line from Ellon to Boddam. This railway had a very short life, being built by the North of Scotland Railway Company, opened for traffic in 1897 and closed for passengers in 1932.

Beyond the bridge is the tiny hamlet of North Haven. Now it consists of only three dwelling houses but when the Longhaven quarries were operating, there was a row of half a dozen attractive cottages each with its own productive garden in front. The dwelling next the main Cruden Bay to Peterhead road had been converted into a Mission Hall in which a religious service was held every Sunday evening.

The visitors who have come this far can now return to the car park a short distance along the main road.

William Burnett |Rhu-na-Haven |North Haven