Edinburgh is so popular with visitors that the adjacent county of East Lothian is often overlooked. Dunbar is in East Lothian, on the east coast of Scotland, 30 miles east of the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. It was really popular with UK holidaymakers until the 1960s, known as "Sunny Dunny" with an average more of than four hours of sunshine per day.

One of the highlights of a visit to Dunbar is John Muir's Birthplace. The conservation pioneer, John Muir, was born here in 1838. I think that John Muir’s life story is so fascinating that it would make a great, inspirational, adventure and educational blockbuster. Although the family emigrated to the US when John was eleven years old, he developed his great love of nature playing and exploring the countryside and shoreline around Dunbar. He was instrumental in Yosemite being declared a national park as tree felling and overgrazing started to destroy the natural environment. He was much more than an conservationist more of a multi talented dynamo a writer, geologist, explorer, farmer and inventor as well as a husband and father to two daughters.

The John Muir Way goes along the seafront in Dunbar where the contrast of the red cliffs and blue sea and sky is stunning. This was the location of the Dunbar outdoor swimming pool, demolished in the 1980s when high maintainence costs coupled with falling attendance due the allure of warmer weather offered by cheap foreign package holidays proved a fatal combination for the pool.

By the working harbour there is an enormous four ton ships propeller, unveiled in September 2003, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Wilson who is credited with the invention of the screw propeller for ships. Wilson lost his Father in a marine accident when he was aged seven and is believed to have been inspired by watching a windmill turning. At one end of the harbour lies the crumbling Dunbar Castle, a defensive stronghold since the Romans entered Scotland.

You can read about what else to do and see in East Lothian in my guide:

http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/scotland/eastlothian

Written by  Karen Bryan.

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