Buckie to Cullen ( or reverse)

Date/Time

Date(s) - 09/12/2018
9:00 am - 5:30 pm

Walk Details

Pub Stop?: No
O/S Map Sheet No.: 28 & 29
Grid Ref. Start: 425657
Grid Ref. Finish 506673
Walk (Miles): 7
Walk Hours: 4
Bus Time to Walk: 2 hrs
Bus Time from Walk: 2 hrs
Departure time from walk: 3:30 p.m.

Walk Notes

Link to Full Album

O.S.Map 28 &29 (Elgin & Dufftown and Banff).

N.B. 9.00am start from Aberdeen.

The walk today sees your Club back on the Moray Firth coast. Today’s walk follows part of the Moray Firth coastline on beaches, cliff paths and rough tracks. This walk is a through-walk, so members who require a different, or shorter walk, please liaise with your Committee member in charge of the bus today. Tide today is 1303 high tide and 0659 and 1920 low water.

The walk commences at the harbour in Buckie (NGR 425 657), where we walk E’wards along the harbour, past Portessie, traverse the golf course, with care, and arrive in Findochty. Leave the village by walking along the harbour front and soon arrive at a sandy beach. At the far end of the beach, climb to the top of a cliff path to then follow a good wide path (E’wards) through some gorse and bracken. After about a mile, Tronach Head is rounded and the fishing village of Portknockie comes into view. Here, we follow Patrol Road along the shore side of the village, looking down at the headland of Scar Nose and the Bow Fiddle Rock. The cliffs then turn southwards for a short distance before dropping down to the beach which is followed for about a mile to the Seatown of Cullen. If the tide is in or near high water, you will not be able to walk along the beach towards Cullen. If this is the case, walk farther on along the cliff tops and join the old railway line, coming from Portknockie, which eventually crosses the old disused railway viaduct before reaching the village of Cullen. Your onwards route goes up a quiet residential street. Bear left at the top of this street and go along Grant Street. In the centre of Cullen, at the square, our bus will be conveniently parked (NGR 511 673).

In 961, a party of Norse invaders landed here and headed inland for plunder, but were confronted and defeated about a mile to the west of Portknockie, at the Battle of the Bauds. The 3 rocks projecting from the sands below the golf course in Cullen are known, as a result, as the Three Kings. The Seatown, or older part of Cullen, is separated from the newer part by the embankment and high arches of the disused railway viaduct, which carried the Moray Coast railway from Elgin to Grange, near Keith.

Walking distance approx. 7 miles.

Bus departs at 3.30pm.

In the event of an emergency arising, the person in charge of the outing should be contacted, if possible, before the police are contacted.

Relevant telephone number for Grampian police is 999.

Committee member in charge today is Frank Kelly

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