Loch of Strathbeg – Wild Geese and Lunch by the Sea
A few hours.
The route
Every autumn the Loch of Strathbeg, a big dune loch behind the beach north of Crimond, fills with pink-footed geese from Iceland and Greenland.
The roar of thousands of them lifting off the water is one of the great sights of a north-east winter. The RSPB's visitor centre and hides look straight out over the loch, and lunch is a short drive away at a family café on Fraserburgh's seafront.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Strathbeg
A winter morning at the hides, with geese, swans and ducks spread across the loch in front of you. Then it's up the coast to Fraserburgh for a warming lunch beside the sea.
About four hoursAbout 1 mile on foot
RSPB Loch of Strathbeg
An attraction
The RSPB calls Strathbeg Britain's largest dune loch. Turn off the A90 in Crimond beside the kirk at the brown nature reserve sign, go left at the T-junction, then right after about 500 metres into the reserve. The car park by the visitor centre is free, and so is the reserve. The centre is open every day, from 9am to 4pm in October, with toilets beside it and telescopes upstairs looking out over the water (there's a stair lift). In autumn and winter the loch holds great flocks of pink-footed geese, with whooper swans, which arrive in October and leave in March and April, and thousands of ducks. The geese fly out to the fields at first light and come back at dusk, so the early morning is the time to see them in the air. A level gravel path leads 850 metres to the Tower Pool Hide, with benches along it. Keep to the paths and hides, and keep dogs close near the reserve's Konik ponies and any cattle.
19 min by car
The Beach Café
Lunch
It's 19 minutes' drive north-west to Fraserburgh and the Beach Café on South Harbour Road, a family-run café on the esplanade looking out over Fraserburgh Bay. Lunch is soup, sandwiches, paninis and the day's specials, with home baking and Bicocchi's ice cream, and dogs are welcome. It opens every day from 10.30am to 4pm; in the depths of winter ring 01346 516555 first. Park along the seafront, where the signs show how long you can park. If it's shut, Nooks & Crannies, a tearoom on Cross Street in the town centre, serves lunch from Thursday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm.
If it rains
The visitor centre's upstairs viewing room and the Tower Pool Hide are both under a roof, with the loch in front of you, so a wet morning still works; the walk to the hide is 850 metres in the open.
Nooks & Crannies, a café in Fraserburgh.
Photographs by Laura Perci, Vicky Dunbar and Beach cafe via Google