Puffin Rock

We had an adventure today. (well, ..... actually it was Sunday. A whole week ago!) A real adventure - taking our lives into our hands. Our friends, Dave and Leah, invited us to go see Puffin Rock. Apparently, the puffins fly to this rock at this time of year to start families. But to see them, you have to take a trek. We drove outside of town for about 20 minutes, stopping in between the signs that say, "Caithness County" and "Sutherland County." This is where we stopped and got out. In the middle of nothing.

And then we walked. We did go prepared with boots, because we were told our feet would get muddy. So, I was wearing a pair of rubber boots borrowed from Leah (about 1 1/2 sizes too big, so my feet moved around inside of them), but they worked really great at keeping my feet dry. The wind was blowing about 35 mph (or more), so it felt pretty wild out there. Especially so because I had not taken anything to hold my hair back and it was flying everywhere.

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We had to walk across the terrain which was covered in heather and peat. The peat was quite interesting. Apparently, they come and cut out long sections of it, dry it out and then burn it. It is even used to cook scotch and comes through in some of the flavor. And that's what they mean when they describe the taste as 'peaty"

But to walk on it was quite interesting. We had to watch our footing constantly, as the ground was quite mushy and uneven.  Sometimes it seemed like solid ground where I stepped, but then my foot would sink several inches. It was deceiving.

Sometimes we had to cross small streams, which made it all the more interesting, because the ground around it was boggy and it was difficult to get good footing. I was the last one to cross an area and thought I was stepping onto a tuft of grass - but alas!  it gave way - ALL the way up to my HIP! My whole leg had sunk through!  Mike quickly grabbed me and helped me out and I want to say that I am impressed that the boot came with me! So, there I was - soaking and smelly in the great wind - and there was nothing to do but laugh. Yuck. I told the others that they needed to look back every now and then to make sure I was with them. It seemed completely possible that a person could just disappear in it.

After a little trekking, we made it to the spot and there was a beautiful sight!  The cliffs were amazing! There were sheep grazing on the steep hillsides and there was Puffin Rock, covered with puffins. It was pretty cool.

Don't you think this view alone was worth the trek?

You might have to zoom to see the tiny puffins.

On our way home, Dave took us to Sandside Beach (not far from the Dounreay site). Here is the sign posted there.

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If you zoom into the beach picture, you can see the white roof of the Dounreay site.

While there, we saw these kids collecting something into a bag. So we asked them what they were doing. They were collecting whelk. What is whelk, you ask? Whelk are small snails. They were collecting them to sell to restaurants. They said they would get about $60 pounds for a bag of them - possibly more. We asked them if they liked to eat them and they replied, "No, they are minging.". And what does that mean, you ask? (and so did we) That means they are awful.  :)


And this should give you pause to wonder where your food comes from. Remember the sign from above? They were on that beach....



On another note, I have seen so many funny signs that I have decided I needed to collect pictures of them and share them with you. So here are a couple I took today on the way back from the puffin adventure. Enjoy!