A trip East to Balmedie

I have a little time to spare before my next TFL work week, so myself and the Passion Wagon head off for a mini tour.  I opt to head South and then East, stopping over near Grantown, then in some woods near Glenbuchat Castle before a night at Balmedie.

I spend some time walking through various plantations and noting the difference in ground flora in Larch, Spruce and mixed plantations.  Maybe it’s just the time of year, and because the Larch are shedding their needles, but the Larch plantations seem to have very little ground flora variety.  In the woods near Glenbuchat Castle, where there are a mix up of Larch, Scots Pine and occasional Spruce, there appears to be a greater variety of plants on the woodland floor.  I’m sure there must be forests with this mix naturally in other parts of Europe, and would be fascinated to study the ecology in such places.

I end up on the East coast at Collieston, where I walk some of the Forvie nature reserve (the light was too poor to get any decent shots), before spending the night at Balmedie, both places I visited last year. There is now a sizeable campaign dedicated to stopping Donald Trump from building his golfing town on the Menie dunes SSSI.  This is a development that we should all take an interest in.  The erosion of our country’s wild and natural areas in the name of economic gain (to the few) is unethical, environmentally and socially destructive and unsustainable.

This program is worth watching, if you’re interested

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00w029w/Donald_Trumps_Golf_War/

or, this web site gives further information

http://www.eco-essentials.co.uk/trump.php

And this group is working against the development in a similar way to the way Greenpeace/Airplot fought against the third runway at Heathrow.

http://www.trippinguptrump.com/

Here are some photos from the trip. I’m afraid that I’ve just been won over by the lighting on some of them so they may not be as interesting as you might have hoped.