More coast from Peterhead to Nairn

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Sunday 12th July
More coast from Peterhead to Nairn.
The weather forecast over the past few days had been out with what actually happened and the rain promised almost daily had stayed away.This all changed this morning as the rain set in before we left Peterhead for the run to Nairn.The temperature struggled again to make double figures this morning sitting on 10deg!!!
However, to warm us up was a full breakfast included in the tariff at the hotel and we indulged to the full !!!Well, how could one pass up homemade black pudding and as Gretchen didn’t want her portion I helped her out and had two!!If this was a full Scottish breakfast then bring them on as we have them included in our 3 nights in Ullapool and 3 nights of B&B thereafter.
The rain meant that the temperature was cold,barely above 10deg!!Welcome to summer in the Scootish Highlands!!So it was back to jeans and long sleeve shirts for me and merino top and jeans for Gretchen.We are sure we will eventually get to wear summer clothes each day once we hit Europe!!
The A90 north passed by St Fergus a massive gas and oil installation thet according to a leaflet we had read”looks like a small city when you see it lit up at night.”Today it was shrouded in rain showers and the two roads that appeared to lead to it for a better view stated quite clearly they were’private’ and had guardhouses on them.Better security here by far than what we saw yesterday.Mind you there is a vast difference in the size of the installations.
As the main road approaches the top of the northeast coastline it swings inland so we took the B9033,the coastal scenic route which we were to follow for the rest of the day.
The seaside town of St Coombs and the larger town of Fraserburgh,both fishing centres,were still asleep as it was Sunday morning and the Scots enjoy a lie in on the weekend.
We took the road that went down a steep hill to another fishing village called Pennan where there was only enough room between the hill and the beach for a row of houses and a one lane track which doubled as the dead end road.Somehow Gretchen managed to do a 6 point turn in RR to get us turned around to get back up the hill.
By now the rain had eased to showers allowing us to get out and take photos and video.The temperature however clung onto the lower teens!!
The next fishing village of Covie came with a colourful writeup in a brochure on towns of the coast and we would have liked to see it.However the brochure said it wasn’t a road for the faint hearted and when we arrived at the top of the road a sign clearly indicated that it was for locals only.
We were able to take a look at it from above and what we could see lived up to the description in the brochure of “houses clinging to the hillside and the beach at the doorstep”.The brochure had suggested you park your car and walk down which we would have done except that the steady rain came back again just as we arrived.
Gardenstown was next in the succession of seaside fishing villages although this was a bigger affair with houses from the cliff top road down to the seaside so we drove down thinking that the streets here might be easier to turn RR around when it became time to head back up the hill.
It would have been so had we been happy with the first view we took in but we thought we might drive along the narrow road between the houses and the sea wall above the beach and it was here we got into a bit of difficulty.Ahead we could see no room to turn RR because other cars were parked in what little turning area there was(probably locals) so we decided to turn in the last spot we possibly could.Talk about 6 point turns !! this turned into a 12 point one.........but we got there in the end.
After Gardenstown and its preceding small and attractive seaside fishing villages we had visited we decided this would be the last one for the day!!
It was nearing lunchtime,or so the body was telling us,when we came across McDuff House situated between the twin towns of Macduff and Banff.A very grand looking stately home built in the 1600’s by a wealthy landowner who got into dispute with the architect and then never actually completed or lived in the house before he died.His son finished the house in which the family lived in for over 250 years before they fell on hard economic times and the place was left unoccupied.
It seems the state then took it over and during the 20th century it had various roles including a sanatorium and a POW camp for German naval prisoners until a stray German bomber dropped a bomb on it after returning from a raid on Scotland and destroyed a small part of the building killing 20 odd prisoners.
The stately home was taken over by Historic Scotland and fully restored and although it didn’t have any of its original furniture the home had been decorated with period furniture and paintings from its construction time.The restoration had been a great success as it looked for all as it would have in the time it was built.
The rain was even steadier now that it had been all day so far and lunch sitting on the tail gate of RR was out of the question in the park like grounds of McDuff House so it was onto Portsoy another coastal village although this time with easy vehicle access and exit for lunch.
Keeping to the coast we drove through Cullen a town where we joined up with a railway and came across a magnificent viaduct on the edge of the town.Like the one we saw near Settle we were able to get up close to this viaduct and be impressed by the quality of workmanship that went into the making of this large stone structure.
After passing through the towns of Portknockie and Findochty(great names!!) we rejoined the main road the A96 as the afternoon was moving on and we were ready for a beer.
From the rolling hills of the countryside as we rounded the northeast coast the land had now become more like a coastal plain and the road straightened out considerably for the run into Nairn which was our overnight stay.
For the first time on this adventure the hotel we were staying in(on this occasion a Best Western)was run by an Indian gentleman.We had become used to Indians owning or managing motels in the USA on our previous trips there but we were unaware that they had spread their ownership to the UK .
The owner/manger was a bit surprised at the rate we had got for the room from Expedia UK and mumbled something about how he was having trouble with the website prices.
The hotel was more like a guesthouse with rooms going off in all directions on different levels with a step up then a step down across the first floor.It was almost as if two or three buildings had been joined together to form the hotel.From the outside though it didn’t look like it.
We did a little bit of exploring of the town as the rain had now stopped completely and it was actually quite pleasant for some walking.The town was essentially in two parts,one an old fishing area closer to the harbour with more basic houses and another part further back with some very grand looking homes with large gardens.
Taking the microwave into the hotel would have been a difficult task so we opted for a good old takeaway of haddock and chips from the busiest shop in the High St,the chippy!!
Like our time in St Petersburg we were back to noticing how it didn’t really get dark at this latitude until well after 11pm and even then there was always some sort of light in the sky making the desire to sleep that much less until tiredness simply overtook us.

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Photos

Village of Crovie
The only way to get there is to walk as there is nowhere to turn a car around.Note how the houses are built into the bank as there is no space.

Viaduct at Cullen
Very impressive structure

Comments

[Helen Fenwick]

You can't beat the chippy!
You both look so well and happy. The chippy is an absolute must to visit - yum ! The photo of the Village of Crovie has to be seen to be believed - amazing. Loving the travel tales, Helen xx