In the space of a week the mercury has dropped down to a more seasonal feel, struggling to keep in the double figures degree's Celsius but with the winds coming from the north & the east it has felt much colder. So after finishing my week of night shift I decided to just go for a little cycle around the coast near my home to re-generate the body batteries after night shift before I go for a longer cycle over the weekend.
Leaving Innerwick village behind & travelling down this field side track towards Torness power station.
The start of the walkway around the back of Torness. Some anglers fishing for mullet at the power station's outlet, the volume of water discharging back into the sea from the outlet flows at an amazing rate of 42 cubic metres per second (555,000 gallons per minute)!
A cormorant drying it's wings as they don't have the water dispersing oils in their feathers that other sea birds do.
The man made breakwater around the power station perimeter with the image showing how it is built up, an effective coastal defence although the sloping blocks on the top picture next to the dirt pathway some of them had been pushed off & some moved by a storm in 2012 !
Pedaling further around the power station to the sea water inlet end where the water is drawn in to cool the reactors before being discharged at the outlet end. In June 2011 both reactors had to be shut down as there were huge quantities of jellyfish which were clogging up the cooling water filters.
Fossils, fossils & more fossils, these fossils are solitary & colonial corals from shallow seas from south of the equator 250-350 million years ago, which to me seems very wrong to quarry these limestone fossil beds to create shore defences for modern day industry, although the whole coastline along this stretch are full of all sorts of interesting fossils ranging from corals, plants to sponges.
Another example of the different layers of geology from mudstone, sandstone, limestone, coal etc etc.
A Giant among the rocks.
A sea angling muppet washed up in the tide, don't think that there is a colour that you can't get these muppets in ! No hook in this one however so maybe it was broke off by the rocky seabed or who knows could of been a BIG cod ?
Information panel about the wildlife & Torness walkway, Torness peeking over the hill.
Skateraw & the Skateraw limekiln & the third picture down the remains of the harbour used for the limekiln.
Teasel a favourite plant for Goldfinches to feed on.
Took a short cut around the edge of a brussels sprout field on the way home & spotted this strange alien amongst them, looking closer to it & I think it is a different variety of sprout that has been mixed up in the batch, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one to see how it grows, it looks like it will be of the red variety so it may even grace my table for Christmas dinner ;-)
A cycle nowadays nearly always results in me picking up a Geocache somewhere along the route, I loved this one of a Magpie hidden in a tree. Geocaching is a past time I would definitely recommend to anyone that's into cycling it takes you to places that normally you would never go & now for me it often dictates the route that I decide to go.
Anyway time to get the kettle on & plan the route for tomorrow, hope you liked the post bye for now.
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