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30 January 2025

It’s a beautiful late-January morning when I leave my hotel in Dunbar to begin an anti-clockwise tour of the beaches of East Lothian. My first stop is just minutes outside the town at Belhaven Bay, one of the beaches situated within the extensive John Muir Country Park, named after the Scottish-American naturalist who was born in Dunbar. It’s a fantastic wide-open beach, accessible by paths across sensitive salt marsh flats and low dunes. This morning, the tide is out and the rising sun is low as I traverse the beach. Temperatures are just a little above freezing but it soon warms up and I am pleased to start the day with such a bracing walk.