Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Moray Coast - Lower River Spey and Spey Bay


Digital sketch based on Spey Bay (Samsung Galaxy tablet, Sketchbook Pro), May 2013
Spey Bay (May 2005)
Munros Man's drawing inspired by Spey Bay on honeymoon

Sketch of Spey Bay, May 2013





Thursday 16th May

I got just the weather I wanted for revisiting the lower Spey and Spey Bay today:  sunny, milder than yesterday, but not not oppressive. Took the bus to Fochabers from Elgin. I was a bit taken a back the steep fare, but it got me where I wanted to be. There is now a new bypass around Fochabers, freeing the village of the oppressive traffic along the A96 Inverness-Aberdeen road we saw here during the 1990s.  It opened last year, though there were now  roadworks in square, shifting the bus stops and confusing passengers.  

Spey below Fochabers
From the square, I followed the old road down to the community woodland along the River Spey and Speyside Way, passing Gordon Castle on my right and new roundabout. This was mixed woodland.  The path ran under old and newer Spey bridges, the latter now carrying the main road, the former now a footbridge. Red sandstone cliff far side (Devonian), along with Baxters of Speyside, passed on the bus - soup etc. On the old bridge over a metre above ground level, a floodmark for 17th August 1970.  This was the highest recorded flood level on the Spey during the twentieth century - records for the gauge at Boat O'Brig dating back to 1952, part of the National River Flow Archive, now held by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. 

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/index.html

There was an even bigger flood in 1829, also affecting the River Findhorn.

On the nearer pillar of new bridge, " Stod Boys".

Walked north from here to Spey Bay, roughly following the  Speyside Way, with some diversions nearer the river. The first bit of the path was a narrow stretch  through Bellie Wood; mixed woodland, then along the edge of Warren Wood, conifers. Mostly forestry tracks and shorter stretches along river bank. Gorse now flowering. Anglers thigh deep, though not in fastest bits of water. River fast but not angry or menacing looking, taking on  the colour of the sky. Peaty water, with a bedload of boulders and sand.

Came to a bend with high bank on the far side of the river, with layers of sand, silt and gravel layers on the red sandstone bedrock (photo above). Presumablyy river deposits laid down since the last ice age. A thin yellow line of a rape seed field on top, a red painted house beyond.


Spey below Fochabers
Moving downstream, the river became increasingly braided flowing between islets of boulders, some of them vegetated, with well-established grass, weed and bushes, particularly near Garmouth viaduct. A sign by the path, told the story of the Spey's habit of changing course:

Garmouth viaduct
Restless River - Shifting Shingle - Going with the flow  - Rivers take their course (Shakespeare ) -  Story of a stone - journey 1829-2000 from mountains, along river to Bay shingle. Moving and shaking  - longshore drift of shingle west towards  Lossiemouth, versus fast, relatively large river shifting channels, breaking through at different points. Spey, still a relatively unalterd natural river, almost as it was around 10,000 years ago, after the ice melted at the end of the last ice age. Most other rivers around Britain have constrained messed about, not least the Lossie, glimpsed from the bus on the eastern side of Elgin (see Lossiemouth entry). Every 30 years or so, they have to recut a new channel through the shingle to stop the village of Kingston, on the west side of the river,  being flooded. Kingston is named after Kingston-upon-Hull, after two Yorkshireman set up a shipbuilding business here in the late eighteenth century, using timber floated down the Spey from the Strathspey forests.

View looking along the Spey towards the sea from the Garmouth viaduct

Near the viaduct was floodplain wood - usually waterlogged and flooded by the river in spate. It was restored from 1998, though lots of trees lost were lost  during a major flood in November 2000 flood. The wood comprised alders  and other marsh / moisture loving plants.

Crossed the Garmouth viaduct - over and back again to the Speyside Way. This was once a railway crossing, now part of cycle route taking in a big loop along the Moray coast and inland round to Grantown-on-Spey. The path along the middle was narrow, girders either side with the river visible through gaps between them. Views through structure towards Spey Bay and upriver towards Ben Rinnes (granite). Kayakers went with the flow, under the viaduct. Saw them later at the Bay.

Near Spey Bay

The mouth of the Spey

At Spey Bay were the Tugnet icehouse and the Scottish Dolphin Centre (visitor centre) near the car park. There are sometimes dolphin sitings here, though nothing today. Further along the coast a hotel Spey Bay Hotel, painted on its roof.  Various birds - terns;  some ducks and swans on the calmer, shallower stretches of water among islets, away from the main channel and fast current.  Certainly a very dynamic looking coast, the shifting shingle, built up into a high bank above the main beach. Lots of woody debris strewn along the beach and along the river, washed dowriver during spates, including some sizeable trees. The tide appeared to be coming in while I was watching, so didn't get to see the full-on battle of speedy Spey versus North Sea. Even so, this went to show the potential power of this river, the fastest flowing major river in the British Isles. I was drawn to its mouth in the same way as that of the Arun down south, though there the rough waters are due to the tide, rather than strong currents of freshwater flowing against it.
The river flow is so strong that the tide only travels half a mile upstream river, even though the Spey reaches sea level above the Garmouth viaduct.


View across the Spey to Kingston
At river mouth, current apparently slowed by incoming tide, but still (note5) - sea waves deflected / converging. Eve
n with oncoming tide, definite movement of water out of river - exaggerated in pencil sketches. Sea relatively calm, with waves breaking near shore, none out to sea. No wind off the sea, being southerly. Lunch on the Bay, facing river - for wind to keep midges off. Upriver, sheltered, definitely midges about so didn't want to stop long anywhere.  pleasing variety of pebbles / boulders on beach. A change from ubiquitous flints from chalk down south.

RAF Rescue helicopter over the Spey

A variety of pebbles on the beach, brought down the Spey since the end of the Ice Age. They reflect the varied geology along the the Spey and its tributaries: Old Red Sandstone, quartzite, granite from the Cairngorms and Beinn Rinnes, granulite, along with schists, slates and phylittes, part of the metamorphic formations of the Dalradian and Moine complexes. Today, I spotted some granite, quartzite and red sandstone conglomerate. 

Sketch the view upriver from the beach, looking towards the viaduct, as I had much lunch facing the breeze. It was a southerly wind blowing along a north facing coast. Disorientatingly for someone used to a south facing coast, it wasn't off the sea, instead it was blowing downriver over Ben Rinnes (still a patch of snow here). A dynamic, changing sky to go with dynamic beach. A few drips on bay, otherwise the showers held off. Views west along the coast to Lossiemouth. Beyond it the higher ground jutting further out to sea on far side of Moray Firth. a wigwam shelter built on beach from driftwood branches.

As Rescue helicopter from RAF Lossiemouth, flew along coast from W, overhead, upriver, then back again over the bay out to sea to east. I saw one of these here in 2005, too. 

Busy in the car park / around the visitor centre. Mosaics, including leaping salmon, snake, birds, designed in 1988 as part of a project by local school children. More artwork / sculpture added around the visitor centre since my last visit: an eagle grasping a salmon in its talons. In the courtyard, a wall painted with yachts,  small bits of driftwood forming the hulls; A wall of netting strewn with scallop shells; and tree scultpture: Christian Gunn, Diving Cetacean. Indeed the upended base of the big tree trunk, excavated from the Spey Bay shingle, did look like a dolphin's tail. On the green area outside, a group of wood carvings together depicting a swimming dolphins. Good to see there was now a cafe in the visitor centre.  Had a tea and scone there. 

Christian Gunn, "Diving Cetacean"
Leaving the cafe, I did some very quick pencil sketches on the beach, before taking a faster, more direct walk back following the Speyside Way to Fochabers. Got on bus about 4.45pm, opposite Baxters of Speyside, after making my farewells to the Spey, crossing the old bridge to the Old Toll House. 

Now here's to the Severn Bore...

Links and Notes

http://www.scottishgeology.com/geo/regional-geology/grampian/spey-bay/

There's an impressive photo of the Spey in spate at the Garmouth viaduct in 2009 on Wikipedia


Driftwood at the mouth of the Spey
Just before coming away, I found a free download online from the Moray Punk band, Genetic Mutation, called Spey Bay Area Hardcore (ref the [San Francisco] Bay Area Hardcore punk genre . It's mostly 1min:39 seconds of noise; the lyrics are hardly profound or sublime, though the volume and pace of the track seems reminiscent of the River Spey in furious spate. 

Link to video (track) on You Tube

My Spey Bay / River Spey videos on You Tube

You Tube also has quite a few canoeing videos along the Spey, including rapids nicknamed The Washing Machine. This is one of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo4AHjaj2Vo


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