Northumberland: Farne Islands Boat Trip.

If seeing thousands and thousands of birds gives you an uneasy feeling, you better stop reading now:)

The second main thing that we wanted to do in Northumberland was to visit the Farne Islands. A few boat tour companies offer daily excursions to the islands from Seahouses (a small coastal town). The journey takes about 30 minutes to reach the first island, but be prepared for a very cold trip. Although we were visiting this area in JULY, we had to wear gloves and hats as it was so windy and not pleasant outside on the boat. At least it wasn't raining and we could see so much scenery with clarity. 

We took hundreds of pictures in the following three hours. Most of them are for us to invoke memories at how cool these islands are but I will post just a few.

The Farne Islands are famous for their bird colonies. It's possibly the most exciting breeding ground of seabirds in England. We were told you can find 23 different species of birds, together with 37,000 PAIRS of puffins. Incredible! And that's what attracted us to take one of these boat tours. 

Approaching one of the islands. 

Nothing REALLY special just yet.

We were astonished at the number of birds perched on these rocky islands. And that was just the beginning. 

I am sure you know where all that white coloring of the rock comes from.

And Robert was here. 

The boat came so close to the rocks that we were able to view hundreds of birds in detail. 

The next stop was another small island that was home to large grey seals! Seriously, about 1,000 seal pups are born here each fall. 

I had never been this close to so many seals in my life! 

The kids thought this was just amazing! The boat allowed us to take a ton of pictures telling us (the boat did not talk, just the boat captain) about how these seals enjoy their lives on this preserved island:).

This was probably my most exciting part of the journey. But there were still more amazing discoveries to come. 

Some seals were really good at showing off:) although for real, I have no idea what they were thinking of these boatloads of tourists... The good news is that we are not allowed to get off the boat here so they can live and breed without any fear.

The Farne Islands are owned by National Trust. Since we are members of National Trust, we didn't have to pay for the "entry" onto the next island where we landed saving 19 pounds for our family.

At first we thought, "Oh look, this is a cool island with an ancient church where monks used to come and live...with a few birds". 

And then we started seeing puffins. Puffins EVERYWHERE! 

They were in the grassy areas and on the cliffs and on the ground digging their holes and on the footpaths. It was incredible! 

I am only showing a few pictures of the puffins here, but I am not exaggerating when I say we took about a hundred pictures of puffins on this island. 

Ah, yeah...our rest place...from all the bird noise and fear of bird droppings. 

We had about an hour on this island. At the end of our stop, we took a little break inside a tiny church, like hermits in the 7th century. 

All I can say in conclusion is if you want to see puffins--THIS is the place to be from May to July. (just not for the whole three months). The boat tour was definitely worth it and was a very exciting thing to do for all of us.

Cheers!

Lyana.