Tuesday 2 August 2011

Last part of the local coast ridden

One small section of East Lothians coast has remained unridden on my pugsley,
From Canty Bay east to Seacliff, until last month when jason and i rode it at a very low tide on a very hot Saturday morning,
it was hard and techy rocky riding in places and a bit of walking with the pugsleys but a great wee ride, i had not ridden this alone before for safety reasons as a lot of the coast here is cut off at high tide below cliffs and an fall and injury would result in you being possible Lobster bait...
along to Canty Bay from North Berwick then down and over the exposed rocks at low tide, past the holiday house and few chalets to below an important Research and testing facility during WW2...










On top of the cliffs of Gin Head is a WW2 radar research and testing station which has been unrecognised for its important work in April and May of 1944 prior to the D Day Landings in France...


It was here that experiments with captured German radar would develop equipment which would block the German radar at Normandy and other equipment was developed which showed up massive movement of ships heading for the Pas de Calais which would deceive the German High Command into thinking that it was the main Allied invasion,
Due to this equipment many Allied lives would have been saved...



They also tested the use of a procedure called 'Window', that involved throwing bundles of aluminium strips out of an aircraft in order to jam a radar station or to make a single bomber appear as a mass of aircraft.


If you want to see inside the building now sold off by the MOD and awaiting development by a property developer then you need to watch a wee film i made...



You can see WW2 and later pictures of the facility and read about its history on the other blog;
No Through Road

Here at Gin Head is about the closest on land you can get to the Bass Rock Island out in the Firth of Forth Estuary...




And around the corner from Gin Head is another landmark famous for its Scenic view on the coast here, Tantallon Castle...






Techy riding over exposed rocks below the ruins leads around to the wee harbour at Seacliff...












Scenicly from North Berwick to Dunbar beaches is some of the best coast in East Lothian with Tantallon Castle ruins on the cliffs and the Bass Rock offshore,
by foot, horse, sea kayak or a fat bike, keep on rolling...


2 comments:

  1. The purple Pugsley is looking good.

    The picture with you in the foreground, Tantallon Castle in the left background, Bass Rock Island in the right background is excellent.

    Have you ridden on Bass Rock Island?

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  2. uncle don; would love to ride on the Bass Rock Island!, but it is a wildlife reserve, permisson is needed just to land on the Island, i will do a feature on the island soon...

    ReplyDelete