Buckie area harbours take centre stage as annual fundraising walk granted new lease of life
A much-loved annual charity fundraiser is alive and kicking after its future looked bleak.
The Six Harbour Walk, which took in ports from Portsoy through to Buckie, looked unlikely to take place this year after event organisers Buckie Rotary Club folded last summer. Prior to that, the walk did not take place as usual last May.
However, Banff Rotary Club stepped in to breathe new life into the fundraiser, which has raised a huge amount for charity through the years, and Sunday, May 4 saw walkers put their best foot forward for the reinvented Four Harbours Circular Walk.
Buckie Boys’ Brigade hall at One Marchmont in the town acted as a hub for the day, with walkers setting off on their 13.5 mile adventure from Buckie Harbour. From there they made their way along the coastal path to Findochty Harbour before continuing their cliff-top journey and then down into Portknockie’s port.
A trip by the iconic Bow Fiddle Rock was then on the itinerary on the way to Cullen Harbour before returning back to Buckie via the old railway path to finish back at One Marchmont.
After rain earlier in the morning, the day brightened up into a fine one for walking for the 150 or so people - drawn mainly from Moray and Aberdeenshire - of all ages who turned out to take part. The only casualty of the weather, as it turned out, was a Rotary gazebo which was damaged by the wind.
For those fancying a shorter hike, a half distance version of the walk was available, starting at Cullen.
One of those left delighted with the day was Carol Polovinkine who, along with Bill Davidson, is walk co-co-ordinator.
She said: “Everyone’s been really, really positive about the new format, which is excellent.
“Many people have said they actually preferred the four harbour route although they all loved the old Six Harbour Walk, which was a great event.
“At first we didn’t really know how it would all go down plus we started getting it together quite late, in January. We knew how popular the Six Harbour Walk had been - many of our Banff Rotary members had done it over the years - and we thought it was a real shame to let that disappear, so we were very keen to keep it going if we could.
“It was great to see such a mix of people taking part, although we had no schools doing it this time around.”
The 13.5 mile trek was not the only challenge the Banff Rotary team faced in bringing together the resurrected walk.
Mrs Polovinkine continued: “It’s been a great team effort all round to bring this together, I can’t stress this enough.
“We’re quite a small Rotary herein Banff so we had a lot of help from people who’d been members of Buckie Rotary, including Andrew and Adam Murray, who were amazing.
“There was also a lot of advice from former walk organisers like Heather Pirie and we’re very grateful to Alan McIntosh and the people here at Buckie BB for allowing us to use their hall.
“It was all a bit overwhelming for us to begin with as we’d never done anything like this before, we had to do it all from scratch. A big shout out has to go to my daughter Anna and her flatmate Joe Stilling, who are both students at Edinburgh University, for their help with the digital side of the walk despite being very busy with their studies. Joe basically did the walk website and got me started with Ticket Tailor, who ran the digital booking system we used for walkers to register.
“Ticket Tailor were brilliant, too and I had many late night calls to them as they helped sort stuff out.”
She added that things were looking “very positive” for the walk next year, with Banff Rotary going to spend some time reflecting on lessons learned from the inaugural Four Harbour Circular Walk event.
The beneficiaries from the first Four Harbour Walk will be Buckie BBs and Banff Rotary Youth Leaders Awards.
Other recognised groups and organisations raising money for their own funds or charities will have 50 per cent of the sponsor money they raise returned to their charity or organisation.
