Go Forth From Pettycur

I was fortunate enough to be able to spend an hour at Pettycur Harbour recently and even though the weather was changeable it was very enjoyable.
From the harbour wall you can see right along the Forth Estuary, from the Forth Bridges upstream to North Berwick Law downstream. Directly south across the River Forth from the Pettycur you can see the Edinburgh skyline with Leith in the foreground and Salisbury Crags, Arthur's Seat and Edinburgh Castle in the background.
Here is some photos I took from Pettycur between the heavy showers of rain:

The Edinburgh Skyline from Pettycur



Edinburgh Castle



Salisbury Crags

Gulls on the rocks (with North Berwick Law in the Background)



The Forth Bridges (with Inchcolm Island in foreground)

 It is suprising to think that Edinburgh Castle sits on a long extinct volcanic fault line, and that line of volcanic features stretches out to the east and includes Salisbury Crags, Arthur's Seat, North Berwick Law and the Bass Rock, all of which have their place in the history of Scotland.

• The Bass Rock is the world's largest single rock Gannet colony, with over 150,000 Gannets nesting there each year
• Arthur's Seat was a hill fort over 2,000 years ago
• Hutton (a famous geologist) used the rocks at Salisbury Crags to demonstrate that the earth was older than 6,000 years, much to the annoyance of some 17th century bible bashers
• Edinburgh Castle is an old building on a rock.

There are some interesting island in the Firth of Forth as well, many of them called 'inch' which is Scot's for island (derived from the Gaelic 'innes').

• Inchcolm Island (which you can see in the foreground of the Forth Bridges photo above) has a ruined abbey and WW2 fortifications on it which is very popular as a wedding venue. You can get boat trips to it from South Queensferry and it is well worth a visit (just watch out for the hundreds of breeding gulls............poo alert!!)
• Inchkeith Island is straight out in front of you at Pettycur and has a lighthouse on it as well as some WW2 fortifications.
• Inchmickery is my favourite island and it is full of WW2 fortifications, so much so it looks like a battleship from the correct angle (see what you think below). Apparantly this was deliberate so that from the air it would deter German bombing raids targeting the Rail Bridge and the naval bases at Rosyth and Port Edgar.



Inchkeith Island



Inchmickery (Battleship) Island

 Enough of the history and geology.......... here is some snaps of birds and scenery I took between showers of heavy rain (don't you just love the Scottish summer??)


Eider Drake Flying



Lesser Black-backed Gull (you should see its big brother!)



Passing Sandwich Terns



Pettycur Harbour



Love this shed roof and chimney



View from car park



Wee cock sparra coming home



Static Heaven



Train with a view

I hope you enjoyed Pettycur Harbour as much as I did, well worth a visit if you have a spare hour or so...........maybe I could get a job with the Kingdom of Fife Tourist Board??

cheers

Teddy Edward