Now that Glasgow has gone down to Step 2 restrictions, we are able to travel outside of the city. We planned our first day trip to coincide with D.’s birthday. I had heard about the Scottish Seabird Centre and their wildlife cruises and we thought we’d give that a try.
The Centre (British spelling) is located in North Berwick (pronounced as “Bare-ick”) which is about 1.75 hours via train from Glasgow. It’s about where the “h” in Edinburgh is on the below map.
The tour was supposed to go around Bass Rock, a rocky island off the shore where there are large populations of sea birds, including gannets and also PUFFINS! And even better, BABY PUFFINS!
Sadly, it was too windy and the captain had to cancel our trip. No puffins.
It still was a really nice day – first getting away for the first time, getting out of the city and seeing the coast.
There’s a small, but culturally important lobster fishery in the area. One of the most interesting things about the trip for me was seeing their lobster hatchery. They’re trying to grow the population of lobsters. Fisherman bring in “berried” females (females with visible eggs) and their eggs hatch and the staff grow out the baby lobsters in warmer water which aids their growth, then they are released back into the water. By supporting the growth of the young, they’re hoping to increase the population for the future. It all takes place in a shipping container. We didn’t actually get to visit the hatchery itself, but they had a really informative exhibit next to it.
The town of North Berwick had oodles of charm and lots of stone cottages (rather than the wooden shore homes I’m used to seeing in New England or Jersey) and beautiful gardens.
of the conservationist John Muir, who was born in Scotland.
Not the trip we planned, but really enjoyable. We hope to catch the puffins next time.
Thanks so much, Suzanne. The trip looked so, so enjoyable!!