Today’s installment begins with a rare parkup failure, which is to say that paper will sit still for anything and as we pulled off the hard road this place didn’t look anything like what was promised. It hadn’t a view and was exposed to the weather. But as I turned off the road my peripheral vision caught a brief snapshot of what might be a footpath along the steep cliffside over toward Portsoy, the next village along the coast. We were left facing down a narrow death spiral half lane, twisting around an outcrop of rock where you can be assured that if somebody’s coming up around that blind corner while you’re going down, you’re both going to have a bad day. It’s steep, tight, twisty, and there’s no way to see if anything is coming.
As we inched down, Marce practically stood up in her seat. Luckily we met nothing coming up. As a matter of fact, no one was down at the bottom either so we had this beautiful rocky coastal parkup to ourselves.
This place was chosen as an Aurora observatory for Marce, having northern exposure, low light pollution, and an observable horizon, but it necessitated a drive across most of the country.
To our left we found strange concrete constructions tying massive piles of rocks together in what appeared to be a way to keep the ocean in a tidal pool for swimming but there was a sign that forbids swimming in the tidal pool.
We decided the empty pool deserved further exploration but it was called due to darkness.
It seems the electromagnetic gods giveth and they also taketh away in what feels like a completely arbitrary way without regard to how far you might have driven. It seems the high Aurora activity alert was pushed back a day but Marce was on full watch all night which it must be said makes for poor companionability aboard Escape Velocity in the morning.
After caffeinating, we decided an exploratory stroll along the cliffside path into Old Portsoy was just the ticket.
It was a fine morning and eschewing the twisty access road, we soon found our way up a steep path to the top of the ridge and spectacular views.
Calling Portsoy quirky may be an understatement after we bumped into this memorial.
Turns out some of the TV show Peaky Blinders was shot in Portsoy. A genuine brush with fame.
Back at the parkup, with the tide filling in, the pool starts to make sense.
After a second night of little or no electromagnetic activity you just have to accept that sometimes there are things over which you have no control.