thoughts escaping my mind
Note: 19th August 2012.
After breakfast, we headed down to Dufftown, considered to be the Whiskey Capital of Scotland. We felt obliged that in Scotland, we would at least do one whiskey tour.
Note: 18th August 2012.
We docked in Aberdeen at around 7:30am and were picked up by the car rental company to get our car at their office at 8:30am. By 9:30am, we were heading out of Aberdeen, possibly the grey-est town, due to the almost exclusive use of granite in buildings, I have ever seen.
Continue reading “Scotland #13 – Banchory – Ballater – Braemar – Grantown-on-Spey”
Note: Really, this was the 17th of August 2012
Westray is the largest north isle of the Orkney islands. And really, I didn’t want to take the 1.5 hour ferry there, and the same back.
But some people didn’t want to stay on the Orkney mainland instead. Which would have been a little more relaxing.
Note: It was actually 17th August 2012 when this happened. Should I backdate my posts instead?
It was yet another cold, wet, misty, miserable start to the day. I am beginning to think this is all of Scotland in the movies – cold, dark and damp with big bearded Vikings robbing and stealing. Or bloody massacres in cold, dark and damp places.
Orkney is famous for its crafts, particularly jewellery, so we went to some shops along the Craft Trail as outlined in the official tourist brochure, to keep dry and out of the outdoors.
Note: the events described on this day were actually on the 16th of August 2012.
The day started cloudy and with a fine misty rain, but around 5:30pm, the sun came out and the clouds disappeared to reveal blue skies. Yes, they actually are blue
And with the sun I actually began to see that it could be summer in Scotland.
But with the wind, the clouds would cover the sun as soon as it emerged. It was like watching a time lapse animation in real time.
It started raining in the middle of the night. And it looks like a wet and cloudy day today.
Woke up and cooked eggs and Orkney back bacon that the proprietor asked if we’d like her to get for us for our first breakfast. She got us bread, milk, eggs and bacon.
On our last day in the Shetlands, we visited the middle areas of the island.
We went driving into Trondra, East and West Burra, that are now all linked by bridge to the mainland.
It was a bright and sunny but blustery day.
This trip has seen a few firsts:
Overnight on ferry and on Shetland Island by 7:30am. Met the car rental person at 7:50am and we were on our way in our tiny red Skoda.
I’m on the North Sea right now, on the Northlink Ferry with free wi-fi.
It was a quiet night in Stonehaven and we woke up later than normal. 8, instead of 6am.
We took an easy drive into Aberdeen for more tourist brochures, in particular, a list of B&Bs that we could call along the way. I didn’t want a repeat of last night just driving around aimlessly not knowing where to start.
Continue reading “Scotland #5 – Stonehaven to Aberdeen to Shetland Islands”