Friday 6 October 2017

Mid week Cycle; 1 hour fix; Gullane Point



Another short ride, I was up at Sunrise and down to Aberlady Bay with the van to witness the amazing site of the thousands of Pink Footed Geese that arrive from Greenland every Autumn and graze by day in the surrounding fields, then return to the bay in the evenings...

More about them in the next blog post,
This morning i parked at Quarry corner and rode out to Gullane Point, it was a cool but stunning morning as the sun came up over the rise of Kingston and Drem and lit up the grass dunes like gold...

One of my favourite views looking across Aberlady Bay to Craigielaw, where we grew up
The  old metal road across the hill to the coast was built by the Home Guard in 1940 to build the `Coastal Crust` concrete coastal defences, most are still here today where the increasing height of the dunes have not swallowed them up...

Interestingly the are of dunes does not have an actual name on maps as it has only appeared in the last 80 years or so as the Marram grass has stabilised the dunes that continue to grow.
The area of marsh are inland is marked on older map as today as `Yellow Myres`,


The track down through the encroaching Sea Buckthorn has now narrowed to the width of a footpath, When i worked here as a Greenskeeper when i left school 30 years ago on Gullane Golf Course the road was wide enough for tractors to drive sand from the now disused sand hole for top dressing greens and green side bunkers, and down to the beach for rougher sand that we called `gravel` for fairway bunkers-it was used as did not blow as much in windy weather, it would blunt mowers if knocked up onto the greens if used at greensides,

Anyway back to the track and here is a wee film dropping down through the Seabuckthorn, it passes a flat area once the football pitch for the Home Guard, and through the old sand hole and down to the rock at Gullane Point,
Song is `Before You Go` by The Brian Jonestown Massacre


Surly Pugsley; Descending to Gullane Point, Oct 17 from coastkid71 on Vimeo.

Rather than ride across the Bay and then need to wash the bike once home (i would be out riding again later) i rode along the dunes...


Its about a 5 minute ride so i did a non stop film to show the riders view,  always better when a rider(s) in front but no one else out here this early...


Glad to be wearing thick KUHL jeans so not to feel the tough spiky Marram grass to much...


To the big dune at the end and an amazing 360 degree view point...


Here is the film,
Song is `Post-Modern Sleaze` by Sneaker Pimps...


Surly Pugsley;  Dawn cycle along the Dunes. Oct 17 from coastkid71 on Vimeo.




From the dunes it was back across the Reserve to the van and home as loads to do today but a nice wee ride...

If you have an interest in out here then a must read is `Footbridge to Enchantment` by the late local author Nigel Tranter, a friend of my father, and as a child at primary school he would visit and tell stories of local history, then when i left high school and started my apprenticeship as a Greenskeeper   i  would often see him taking his daily walk across the reserve and would exchange a wave,
Always notebook in hand, stopping every so often to write, most of his novels were written from notes taken out here, the book tells  lot of history about the land out here and how it has grown and how the Bay has filled in and saltwater marshes where once there were beach huts on sandy beaches,  worth finding a copy...






More soon...

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