We had a few days away in the campervan up North.
Saw a Minke whale at Stoer Head on the first night less than a mile off shore!
We then headed for Durness and took the opportunity to drop in and say, “Hello” to Julian and the team at Plasticatbay and chat about what they have been getting up to trying to tackle the plastic pollution on their bit of coast and the ways they are trying to successfully re-cycle it.
Julian kindly gave us the location of a secret beach which we visited and enjoyed the stunning scenery and thankfully very little plastic (4.1kg) due to the hard work of Connor the Plasticatbay Coastal Ranger. We did find a plastic bottle covered in goose barnacles which helps to show just how long this stuff hangs around in the marine environment and at Sango Sands we came across a huge fish bin lid (26kg) which had been manufactured in India. Mum and Dad really enjoyed lifting that off the beach !
Over the next couple of days we joined Plasticatbay on a coastal walk past the golf course and then on a longer 6km trip out to Old Grudie at the bottom of the Kyle of Durness. An amazing location for a house ! Much of the beach litter here is dominated by MOD webbing resulting from the parachute flares used during live firing at Cape Wrath. We collected approximately 100kg (our contribution was 61.3kg) which thankfully is a lot less than some of the hauls Julian has removed from there in the past. Read about their trip out to Old Grudie in May giving a lot more information on the MOD material that is found on this part of the coast.
We stopped at the motorhome facility at the Old Pier in Kinlochbervie on the way home. A great place which has room for 15 vehicles. An overnight stop including electric, water and chemical disposal is only £15 with all monies going into the community fund for future projects.
Sadly in the morning we could see that across the water Loch Clash beach was looking pretty bad for plastic pollution so we decided to delay going home and walk in to do a beach clean. 5 hours of hard work later, with a stop for a bit of swimming, we had dragged another 133kg of plastic rope, twine and other fishing equipment off the beach.
Including a few litter picks at our stop off points and overnight stays our total amount of rubbish removed and added to Ella’s Beach Clean Challenge for the week was 268.3kg.
This brings the running total up to 595.2kg, over a third of the way towards her 1500kg target.
This is the link to Ella’s fundraiser page should you wish to make a donation
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