Midweek cycle - back in the groove...

Back into the weekly midweek rides on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Weather has been Baltic with a cold N/NW wind bringing clear sky and crazy sleet and  hail showers.

Most have missed the hill at work while i have been flat out making the most of the dry grass to get the fairways shaved and striped up, while watching some spectacular storm clouds pass by down the coast out at sea or to the west inland over Edinburgh and closer the Garleton Hills and Lammermuirs...

These pics from yesterday,
-3.5C windchill, told you April is the coldest month of the year!, sitting mowing fairways if dressed right it is ok even on an open mower.  3 layers of merino with 3 jackets. Buff neck warmer, hoodie and wool hat with waterproof leggings and over jacket with ski gloves..

Good to see stripes on the hill again!

Tuesday after work i met Phil who is up on a break in North Berwick for Forth Fat and a few days R&R and we did a high tide ride west to Yellowcraig and the coast at Archerfield where i showed Phil the remains of the WW2 coastal searchlight stations and gun platform at Yellowcraig - Phil likes a bit WW2 history :)
The search light stations along with a magnetic detection band of steel across the sea bed that from near Gin head to Isle of May then across to Fife which would alert any metal magnetic movement of submarines or ships trying to enter the Forth to attack the Navy Fleet if at Roysth,
If activity was detected to fast patrol boats based on Isle of May and fighters at RAF Drem would be scrambled along with Naval frigates at Rosyth, The Forth was one of the most defended estuaries on the east coast. The defences here at Fidra and across the Forth Estuary in Fife at Kincraig were the outer line of defences...

We watched huge showers blow across the Forth as we rode east stopping at the WW1 pill box..

`Blues` in another sense of the word!, it was Baltic!...

We rode the grassy single track above the tide line getting a bit shelter from the biting wind...

`Pigs ears` used along the coast here in 1940 to wrap fences of barbed wire, great in the garden with climber plants!...

Former Radar station `HMS Dirleton`, now a house..

Nearby on a farm a shed that was a dispersal hut that came from the former RAF Drem airfield...

RAF blue paint...

Once Dirleton Curling Club and curling pond..

Old potato drilling plough...

Through Archerfield....

Impressive...

More impressive-wood!  :D

Sun is sinking so better get moving, down the old coastguard track towards the coast..

Moody clouds all around...

Remains of a Searchlight station ahead...

Bases of the generator engines...

Trenches between buildings...

Dropping down to the east is the more intact other station here..

And that`s the money shot right there...

This was disguised as a shed with slated roof...

Supposedly this is for a dog buried here..

Gun platform and distance indicator mount...

Robbed of a sunset with low cloud we dropped down to the other remaining building...

`Phone Home`...

During the summer of 1940 as the battle of Britain pilots fought for air supremacy and stop the inevitable invasion, The Coastal Crust defences were built to prepare to defend and slow down any landings, this included defences inland at airfieds that could ne used. Here on the coast at Fidra there was a house on the site of this recently built function room whose tenant who was an estate forestry worker, a Mr Tom Porteous who was given only 24 hours notice to leave his house!, such was the rush to build a defence gun battery..

They then removed the roof, added a basic camouflage shelter and a 6" WW1 navel gun!

Here is other pictures of Fidra Gun Battery...

Manned by 309th coast Regiment the Battery was stood down and put on basic maintenance in 1943..
Great pic!

There was another 6" gun documented, mounted i guess up at the previous site we first arrived at.
The Site had no radar hence the searchlights...

The Firth of Forth was also mined as can be seen in this diagram which shows all the defence sites...

With the light fading - and the temperature dropping we headed back to NB and a coffee at Phil`s camper van before heading home...

Forcast for Saturday is now looking cold but sunny so be back on the coast somewhere...
More soon...