Goldfinches clustered on dock seedheads as we made our way down the thin silver path to the sea. Most coastal flowers were over now, though yarrow, flat-topped and bone-white, still bloomed. Rose hips gleamed through tangles of briars. Agrimony seeds bristled, eager to snatch at clothes and be transported somewhere new.
A warm autumn day, we sat on sloping boulders below the Bathing House, its sandstone walls and tall chimneys stretching up out of the rock. Built in the early 19th century by Earl Grey of nearby Howick Hall, it was designed for his large family to bathe, with an upstairs sitting room so Lady Grey could check on their 15 children in the pools below. Chisel marks show where a tide-fed swimming place was enlarged. There are remnants of metal fixings for awnings and stepped ledges angled towards the sun.
Below us in the tiny rocky bay, a female eider worked her way around the inlet searching for crabs and mussels, her greenish paddling feet and flattened beak clearly visible through the calm water. A low skerry protects this bay and beyond it gannets rose up to plummet down with folded wings. Over and over, their streamlined forms hurtled into the sea leaving vertical splashes. We skirted a bulky cliff of coarse sandstone; this was once quarried but now it provides handholds for bouldering and a snug place to sit out of the wind.
At Rumbling Kern the sea has surged and carved out a hole in the rock, creating beyond it a steep-sided chasm, loud as its name in rough weather. On this windless day there was just a deep hollow sound plunking in the open cave as we peered in. The eider had got there before us, and after a panic of beating feet, she carried on feeding with a wary eye. High above us on the rock face, were carved the words Ye Howick Camp 1902-3-4-5, commemorating perhaps summers spent at scout camps. The most poignant message is harder to spot. Look carefully and, among the modern graffiti, camouflaged by age and wear, are the letters UOYEVOLI.
