Shingle banks of the Spey

17/10/24

Yet again it was time for work. These couple of days a week come so quickly. I cant believe that I actually managed to do a ‘normal’ working week. We decided to drive down to Spey Bay where the local golf course also offers a camp site. I had tried to ring and email to no response but had found online booking on Pitchup. I don’t normally like to use Pitchup unless its the only way to book somewhere, as I assume they take a fee, but in this case we paid a deposit online. It gave us a bit more confidence about driving down.

Spey Bay Golf Club Campsite

We arrived at the golf club to find it locked and empty. I tried ringing again but still no answer. A grounds keeper was working in the distance but impossible to pin down for a conversation. In the absence of anyone else on site, but finding the toilets and showers open, we decided that we were probably ok to pitch up and sort things out later. We felt a bit odd about it, particularly using the electricity and the bathrooms, and every time someone drove past we wondered if they were going to pull in either to welcome us or to ask us what on earth we were doing.

It turned out that Bert, who usually manages the campsite and golf club, was on holiday for the week and at this time of the year the golf club was only opening on demand. On the Wednesday afternoon someone was in, running the bar and cleaning, so we finally managed to pay the rest of the campsite fee and ask if it was ok to check out late on Thursday (which it was).

Parked at Spey Bay Golf Club

Spey Bay and the Tugnet Fishing station

There isn’t much in Spey Bay, but there is enough. A golf club, a row of houses parallel to the coast and the old Tugnet salmon fishing station which houses the Dolphin Centre. Sadly we didn’t see any dolphins, whether off the beach or from the cameras that beam their pictures back to the centre.

A row of three stone tunnels with curved, turfed, roofs sit next to the Dolphin Centre. These are the ice houses and would have been used to store the salmon, packed in ice from the Cairngorm mountains, before it was transported away.  If you’re here at the right time you can also get to see inside the buildings which are a lot deeper than they appear from the outside.

Sculptures at the Dolphin Centre. Turf roofed Ice House behind.

Spey Bay has a lagoon behind a huge shingle spit which is just the latest in a series of pebble banks laid down over time as the Scottish coast has slowly rebounded from the weight of glaciers.

We spent lunchtimes and evenings wandering along the spit, watching the birds on the river, and following the paths up the river bank towards the viaduct. On one occasion we heard a whuffing as seals surfaced nearby and announced their heavy breathing presence.

Heavy breathing seals

Cycling from Spey Bay

On Thursday, work finished for the week, we cycled from Spey Bay back towards Cullen. The ordnance survey map showed a bike route through the woodland behind the golf club. After going the wrong way, following the on-road national cycle route, we turned ourselves around and re-joined the route we’d seen on the map. I’m not sure that the map was correct in this instance, the path was narrow and rooty and we were lucky it was not busy as we’d need to stop for anyone coming the other way. It was only signposted as a pedestrian route, but it was fun and interesting single-track in the woodland at this quiet time.

Track through the woodland behind the golf course

Out of the woods, we joined the disused railway line near Lower Auchenreath and then we had a pleasant route we could easily follow, sometimes on road and sometimes on the old railway line.

Portgordon was the first stop, a small harbour town with motorhome parking that we eyed up for that evening. Then Buckie, the biggest settlement along here with more industrial scale fishing where we stopped at a fishmongers on the way home. Findochty was next, another attractive harbour village. Then we were in familiar territory at Portknockie, where we picked up some baked treats for a bit of lunch which we ate while gazing out to sea looking for dolphins.

We re-traced our steps back to Spey Bay. In the woods I lost Paul who took off on an alternative route and ended up turning himself around. Who says I don’t have a sense of direction? (Paul, that’s who!)

Parking at Portgordon

After a hot shower at the golf club we headed off to Portgordon. The motorhome parking here is by the community polytunnels where I nosed around their plants. Tomatoes were still on the vine and they had a good selection of chillies. I paid our donation for parking into the honesty box in the bigger of the polytunnels. The community here is very active in trying to preserve the village and harbour. The harbour is currently empty, blocked by shingle and historically prone to silting up. There are plans afoot to investigate opening the harbour back up.

This is a ‘planned village’, like quite a few built in 17th and 18th century Scotland by lairds who were developing their commercial interests; agricultural, fishing and industrial. No surprise that it was the Duke of Gordon who built this town and harbour and chose to name it for himself. Later down the line, when the harbour became more trouble that it was worth, the family sold it back to the crown estate in lieu of death duties.

We spent the remainder of the evening wandering along the front, watching the seals hauling themselves out for low tide. We found a good vantage point peering over the harbour wall to avoid spooking them. We had to avoid the areas that were slippery with guano from the cormorants and gulls that had established the area as their territory.