Best beach walk in North-East

SCOTSTOWN TO ST COMBS: Lying between Peterhead and Fraserburgh is one of the finest stretches of uninterrupted sand and dune in Europe. On this 12-mile stretch of clean and unspoiled beach, backed by great wind-sculpted sand dunes up to 75-feet high, there are few access points.

ST FERGUS GAS TERMINAL: The massed pipes of St Fergus march across the 220-acre site with considerable flare. Relatively unobtrusive behind the beach, the gas terminal collects gas from around 20 British and Norwegian oilfields through deep-water pipelines.

RATTRAY HEAD www.rattrayhead.net A petition from the fishermen of Peterhead in 1889 said the area "was notorious among mariners for its foul ground, rapid tides and high and dangerous seas". It was 1895 when David Stevenson's lighthouse first flashed, a 74ft tower stuck on a 46ft stumpy granite cylinder, reached by causeway at low tide. The lens apparatus, in complete working order until the lighthouse was automated in 1982, is on display at Aberdeen Maritime Museum.

WRECKS: At low tide there are several wrecks clearly visible near Rattray Head. I saw four. The most substantial remains belong to the Excelsior of Laurwig, a Norwegian barque carrying phosphate which ran aground in 1881. The 13 crew were rescued. It lies half-buried in the sand like the rotting ribcage of a giant monster of the deep, the well-preserved rows of dark-brown to black wooden uprights dripping slimily with sea-green weed. There are also remnants of HMS Erne, a destroyer wrecked in 1915.

INVERALLOCHY: Two miles beyond St Combs this is one of the best of the north-east herring-boom fishing villages, with long parallel rows of typically low large-stoned cottages with gables to sea and street, others clustering round a net and clothes drying green. Despite the lack of a harbour, 230 boats fished from here in the 1880s. Maggie's Hoosie, a traditional, restored, two-bedroom fisher cottage, with much of the original contents, is open to the public.