Tag: coast
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Kettleness Scar
Low tide at Kettleness exposing the Pliensbachian mudstone scar below the headland. Scar comes from the Old Norse sker for a reef. The Scots skerry and Gaelic sgeir derive from the same root. The scene might look benign but the below the waters lie a graveyard of ships. The Ceres, The Curlew, The Golden Sceptre,…
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Saltburn Sands
When Malcolm Campbell took his 350hp Sunbeam Grand Prix Blue Bird for a spin along Saltburn Sands on 17 June 1922 he reached 138.08 mph, a world land speed record at the time although this was not recognised as the timekeepers had used stopwatches instead of the electrical timing apparatus required by the official rules.…
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Robin Hood’s Bay
The best time to view the huge arc of Robin Hood’s Bay is at low tide when long curves of the rock strata are exposed. The Jurassic rocks of the Yorkshire coast were already old when the two of the plates that make up the earth’s surface collided causing buckling and folding of the strata,…
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Connemara
Sea pinks and lichen on the rocky coast of Connemara. Oscar Wilde called it a savage beauty. Fading light and high tide amongst the ‘Inlets of the sea’. Inland more rock and bog, a place to explore.
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Duggerna Rocks, Kilkee
Why is watching huge Atlantic rollers crashing on the rocks so mesmerising? And watching a porpoise feeding in the shelter of the pier. And watching the sun go down.
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Cuchullin’s Leap
Crossed the Shannon into County Clare. Cuchullin’s Leap at Loop Head is an impressive cleft in the headland, in theory, creating an island but I didn’t look over to see if there was actually water entirely along the bottom. The story goes that Mal, a local witch, fell in love with Cuchullin who was not…
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Mainistir Achaidh Mhóir
The ruins of the 6th-century Ahamore Abbey, overlooking Derrynane Bay in County Kerry and lying on the appropriately named Abbey Island which only lives up to being its status of being an island at the highest spring tide.
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Ballydonegan
On the Beara peninsula and a lovely bay called Ballydonegan, just south of the village of Allihies, the Anglicised name for Na hAilichí which translates as The Cliffs. The village was once the largest copper producing area in Europe and a ruined mine building towers above it beckoning me in the morning. In the distance…
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Dunlough Bay
Even on a calm day, the rolling waves of the Atlantic produce plenty of white water around the sea cliffs north of Mizen Head, the most south-westerly point of Ireland. Truly spectacular. The rocks of the cliffs are sedimentary sandstones and mudstones layered by million years of deposition with synclines and anticlines folding. Link to…
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Talwch ac arddangoswch
Found a lovely little beach in Anglesey with my first Thrift of the year. I thought it was Talwch ac arddangoswch which I realised later means “Pay and display”. Doh, should have paid attention to reading the map. The correct name is Rhoscolyn. Open Space Web-Map builder Code