A light shower first thing (oh yes dog walking time!) and then a warm and humid day with some sunshine for the most part followed by some pretty heavy thunderstorms from about 5. A walk around St Abbs Head was on the agenda for today, though we nearly turned back when we saw how busy St Abbs was, but we found a spot in the NT car park just up the road from the village itself and set off along the ‘Discovery’ route through open farmland towards St Abbs Head.

This route was pretty much unused, though we could see little groups of people walking along the headlands opposite. At one point I thought we had come unstuck as we met a cow on the wrong side of the fence.

But actually she was far more interested in chewing the ‘forbidden’ grass than in us and fortunately all her colleagues were quite content on their side of the fence!

As we wandered down the valley with these fabulous sea views on our left you could easily miss Mire Loch glittering away on our right.

At the bottom of the valley is this stunning little bay – Pettico Wick (though I rather think that is the name of the rocks!) with breathtaking views north along the coast.

We didn’t venture down as we still have a fair walk ahead of us and made our way along the path up and around the cliffs that make up St Abbs Head. From one of the highest points we had a good view of the rather small St Abbs Head Lighthouse (it is only 9m tall) and foghorn.

And then spectacular views back down to the sea along the valley up which had just climbed.

The path continued to meander up and down the headlands with spectacular views all the while.

At one point we came down onto a stony cove and Poppydog was able to have a play and a dunk in the sea.

At about this time, the sky had gone grey, thunder started to rumble above us as a few drops of rain fell and yet it is still very warm. Enough of a warning to hasten is on our way, leaving Burnmouth Harbour behind.

Fortunately the rain didn’t come to anything and the thunder was now rumbling further inland as we made our way over the last remaining headlands with St Abbs (the little seaside village) in our sights.

Instead of venturing down into the village, we have decided to return another day when it will perhaps not be quite so busy and so we follow the path above Starney Bay back to the car.

A lovely 5 mile circular route up there in the favourites.

Two thoughts of the day:

Sometimes you just get lucky with your plans – within 10 minutes of arriving back on site we were rewarded by thunder, lightening and torrential rain!

Feeling rather smug, dry and warm and somewhat sympathetic for those in tents!