In Scotland - Culbin is an eerie place

Culbin is an eerie place at times,

wandering through silent lichen-clad pine forest

planted over the dunes,

some of which are sizeable (the largest about 35m high), and in other places across beach-stones, now a forest floor.

You have to keep your directional wits about you too as its easy to lose sense of where you are.

The forest was planted as a trial with many different species from around the world to see how well they grew in this climate - which could be an interesting area of study given climate change.

There's plenty social and ecological history -

If you make it through the forest to the bar (sand spit) there are remnants of old salmon-netting - an array of poles sticking up out of shallow beach/mud.

Further round you can see Grey and Common seals playing in the current where the Findhorn bay goes through a narrow channel into the Firth.

Well worth a walk!