Living in Aberdeen Part 5

Newburgh Seal Beach

With the weather looking promising over the weekend, we decided to head 13 miles north of Aberdeen to Newburgh Seal Beach. It isn't too far from the city centre at all - we took the number 50 Stagecoach route from King's Street to Newburgh, which came in at £7.40 for a return. The journey to the beach was scenic, with views of an offshore wind farm and the rolling fields and hills of the Scottish countryside. It took about 35 mins to get to the stop, and the beach was a 15 minute walk from there.

The path to the beach was well mapped out, and involved crossing some sand dunes that had built up along the mouth of the Ythan River. There's a few good view points on the top of the dunes where you can see the mouth of the river from afar.

Newburgh Beach is famous for its seal colonies, and luckily there were plenty when we went! Most of them were 'bobbing' in the river mouth, with a few chilling on the other side of the river to where we were. They were quite inquisitive, and an information board did tell us that the seals may stare at you for a while as they try and work out what's going on! I tried to get some photos of them on my phone, but it proved to be trickier than expected. They would always go under the water and resurface a few moments later, and against the grey water it was hard for the camera to focus. If you do have a DLSR camera with a zoom lens it may come in handy here! Nevertheless, we got a few snaps which I'll share below:

As well as seals, the sandy beach and surrounding dune ecosystem had a variety of bird species. What was nice about Newburgh was that it was very quiet and not touristy at all, making you very much feel like you were exploring around. The vast expanse of sand and the river mouth went on for miles, so you could easily spend a whole day exploring here. Something to note is that the windspeeds on the beach are a lot higher than inland, so do bring extra layers of clothing as it can feel chilly depending on when you go.

Parkrun #2

I decided to go for a parkrun again this week as it was quite a wholesome event up here in Aberdeen. This time my run went a lot better, as I could judge the distances having run the same route last week. For those interested in my time, I came in at 25:24. This week it was easier to stick at running a 5-6mins/km pace as there were some pacemakers on the course, which you could use as a target.

Lunchtime Run

After talking to some people at work who were also keen runners, I got a few routes sent through to me on MS Teams with routes around the office, in the Dyce region. They were decent sized loops, being 5-8km. I had a go at running one of them, that led me along the riverbanks of the River Don, and was pleasantly surprised! You wouldn't even know that you were in a city, it was so quiet and peaceful, with the river on one side and woodland on the other. It was nice to get out at lunch for some fresh air and nature. I managed to snap some of the scenery below, but didn't take my phone out too often as to not disrupt my run. Running a 5km at lunch was a good way to build up a sweat and get my heart rate up without taking a large chunk of time, and showering facilities at work mean that I can freshen up before the afternoon.

That's all for the blog this week. If you have any suggestions of what else I should try and get up to while I'm here let me know!