June 7th, 2007, 360 import, Seaton Cliffs

No buildings today, no Castles, no Tower Houses, no ancient stairways, no gun loops and no vaulted cellars. Instead, a vast prehistoric deposit of rich red sandstone, 350 million years worth of the stuff. And this is the basic building material of all those castles and fortified houses in and around Angus. Travel further north or down to Edinburgh and the castles are built from Granite, stone local to that area, but here it is red sandstone, found in abundance around this, the astoundingly beautiful North East Coast of the cruel North Sea. These cliffs, caves and stacks are the result of relatively recent and ongoing erosion of the soft sandstone deposited so long ago. The cliffs are reached from the far end of Victoria Park, Arbroath at the end of the promenade, less than half a mile from the centre of town. The whole area from Victoria Park right along the Cliff top pathway is a designated 'Site of Special Scientific Interest', or SSSI as it is known. This is on account of the spectacular rock, stack and outcrop formations AND the vast numbers of nesting seabirds AND the numerous rare flora and fauna prevalent in the area. In fact, it has just about everything anyone could possible want for a nature loving day out. If you follow the cliff top path from Whiting Ness at the north end of Victoria Park you reach the start of the reserve near a sandstone arch known locally as Needles Eye. Beyond that is Dickmonts Den, Devil's Heid and Carlingheugh Bay and then Seaton Den. You can stop and just sit a for while in perfect peace,just gazing out to sea, sometimes you get to see dolphins jumping and diving as they swim north where they breed. Always there is the sound of the sea birds screeching overhead and the sea crashing against the foot of the rocks. Sitting at the top of the cliffs gives a peculiar view of the swooping, soaring birds, very often they are actually flying lower down the cliff face than where you are sitting. Sometimes you're just sitting on top of the cliffs taking in the beauty, mesmerised by sun light sparkling on the blue water, when suddenly a bird will appear from below the edge of the cliff and sore up and up above you. There are Gulls, Gannets, Fulmars, Rock Doves, House Martins and my favourite, Puffins, with their bright red beaks. I especially like to see the Puffins, like little painted birds who imitate clowns. At low tide the waders come and poke around in the pools left behind by the sea. Other people go to see the variety of wild flowers, some of the flowering plants are quite rare. There are tiny little wild pink orchids that I see sometimes, not sure exactly what they are called but they are very pretty. I think one of the most amazing things about this place is it's age, it gives a sense of continuity. For thousands, who knows millions of years, people have been living here. There are some very ancient cart tracks that show where the ancient people mined the sandstone from the foot of the cliffs and dragged it up by the cartload. This Red Sandstone has been the basic building blocks for all buildings in and around this area for all time, for as long as people have been erecting buildings around here this sandstone has been used. The peace found up here is akin to sitting way up in the eves of a medieval cathedral. It offers that kind of peace and tranquillity, and yet it is far from silent with the crashing sea, the screeching birds and sometimes the howling wind. Beautiful, ancient, peaceful yet full of history and full of life. Oh how I love this place, if I were to give it a visitor rating it would have to be ****************************************************************