THE JOHN MUIR LINK

It was one of those cold, unforgiving  late winter days when the wind blew strongly from the west and made my eyes water.  The cloud lay like a huge blanket over the land, washing away all colour, turning everything to monochrome. Everything except the lifeboat, that is, whose slash of scarlet and orange contrasted strongly with the grey sea and black rocks.  A sign read: ‘John Muir Link.’ You can’t know what this means unless you are aware that this stretch is in the middle of the John Muir Way and must therefore link the main arteries of the path itself.  There is a steep climb above the old limekilns that were worked out as long ago as the 18^th century. The Council has erected a metal bench on a concrete plinth atop the limekilns that gives you an uninterrupted view of the North Sea. I didn't sit there long, for the wind was like a file, working away at the potato skin of my face, and I moved on.  On the landward side, there is an excellent vista that includes newly tilled farmers’ fields, a ribbon of the A1 road and a section of the main railway line, along which the London trains hurtle by at 90 m.p.h. On the seaward side are ancient primeval rocks, some 400 million years old, black and dangerous.  The steel-grey sea seems to stretch into infinity.  The climb flattens out along a narrow, fenced footpath.  To the south stands the stark, square and mysterious grey nuclear power station with its innumerable warnings to keep out, each with an image of skull and crossbones to reinforce its uncompromising message.  After a couple of hundred yards, the path twists and curves steeply downhill.  Slender timbers have been rammed into the ground to create steps, and I walked gingerly on these because I felt they weren't safe.  I walked over loose scree for a hundred yards and then I was on the walkway proper.  It is on two levels and you can’t walk the lower level when the tide is high and the sea is rough, when it smashes over the sea wall and floods the path.  When the sea is especially lively, they shut the gates at either end. On the upper level, I walked on loose stones that hurt my feet, so inadequate were my shoes.  At the start of the walkway, the massive iron railings on the seaward side are heavily corroded. A sign reads ‘No swimming – dangerous currents.’ I heard the continuous slapping of the sea against the concrete stanchions supporting the walkway, right below my feet.  On the upper level, you are forty feet above the sea. I saw a raft of black and white Eider ducks bobbing about amongst the rocks and the weed.  I saw the security men patrolling the hinterland of the power station as if it were a top-secret military installation.  I saw the sea defences, crazy grey obelisks of concrete that look like bodies flung into a mass grave.  I saw a fisherman fishing from the glistening black rocks and his two companions collecting bait. I saw a man in silhouette, coat collar turned up against the wind, shoulders hunched against the cold, walking towards the caravan site far away.  I sat on a bench facing the power-station and watched a works vehicle traversing one of the roads towards the car park.  I looked at the information board, produced by the energy company, that tells you a pair of peregrine falcons nests on the power station roof and rears two or three fledglings each year.  The board also tells you gratuitously that the sea is so clean that otters are occasionally spotted swimming in the place where the spent water is ejected.  I checked my watch.  It was almost lunch time. The distance is four miles there and back and the walk takes over an hour.  When you return to your car, your impression might be of the wildness and bleakness of the place and the power of the sea.  You might also be impressed that a squat square box could produce a quarter of Scotland's electricity and you might wonder what would happen if something goes radically wrong.  If you are of that frame of mind, you might drive away from the car park with some relief.