Hooptedoodle #300 - Visit to a Local Landmark - North Berwick Law

Unprepossessing lump - North Berwick Law doesn't look so great from the car park

In the area where we live there are a number of strangely shaped bumps - some of them are hills (like kids' drawings of hills, really) and some of them, because they finished up in the sea, have become rather quirky looking islands. They are all the hard, basaltic cores of ancient volcanoes. Let the frost and the wind and the Scottish rain nibble away at the softer outside covering for many millions of years and - bingo - you have these strange, characteristic bumps.

One of the more famous examples around here is North Berwick Law. You can see it from most of the surrounding county, you can see it from the Fife coast, across the Firth of Forth - you can even get a glimpse of it from the North Bridge, above Waverley Station, in Central Edinburgh - 40 miles away. It is, in short, a landmark.

Because it's local, of course, we seldom go there - we leave that sort of stuff to the tourists. It's only about 600 feet high, but since it's a fairly abrupt climb from the harbour, it seems higher. Certainly the view is worth the exertion.

I must have climbed NB Law maybe 8 times in my life. The last time before today was when I took a visitor up there, in January 2012 (I am surprised to learn - how time flies) - I recall that walk well, since I slipped on the mud on the way down, and slid about 30 feet on my a*se, which damaged my dignity far more than it injured my person.

Anyway, today was a beautiful day, and off we went for the afternoon. Splendid - clear view, not too windy. As ever, you wonder why you don't do this more often.

The Contesse took her camera, so you get to see rather better quality pictures than I could have managed. My son was much quicker than us, both up and down, and he told us afterwards that he had finished the downward leg in 7 minutes, while we took 23. Maybe this means we enjoyed our walk about 3 times as much as he did? It's a thought.

Apart from these old volcanic plugs, this is quite a flat plain - looking south-west
from the top - note the characteristic red-brown earth that you get in this coastal area
of East Lothian, which continues down the coast into Berwickshire

Looking west across the town - the island right in the middle of the picture is Fidra,
which is supposed to be where RL Stevenson's childhood trips fired the idea behind
Treasure Island

Ah yes - the jawbones. The ones you see here are a replacement set, supplied quite
recently - a fibreglass replica of the genuine ones which rotted away. I find this interesting;
naturally we could not condone the killing of a modern whale to obtain replacement
jawbones, but what will our descendants make of this strange plastic structure on top of
a hill? Obviously some kind of religious significance. In any case, we are in trouble
 - there must already be those who feel we should not be erecting monuments celebrating the
historic hunting of whales. This really is difficult, isn't it...?

Plaque to explain why there is a fake jawbone on top of the hill.

On the horizon on the left are the Lammermuir hills, on the right are the Pentlands,
over near Edinburgh, and in centre, rather closer to our viewpoint, are the Garleton
Hills, near Haddington

View across the harbour towards the island of Craigleith, with the weekend dinghy boys
giving it their best shot. The villages on the Fife coast, right at the top, are Anstruther and
Pittenweem, though I can never remember which is which...

View to the east is back towards our neck of the woods; the Bass Rock - another famous
volcanic plug - looks a bit unreal here - the colour confirms that the gannets are
arriving for the Summer.