The North of Scotland

Picked up the car from Waverly Station which was only 5 minutes walk down a thousand narrow steps andthen back to the lane to pick up Wendy guarding the bags. It was a bit of a logistical operation but went well and so we headed north to the wilds of Scotland....but not before a stop at St Andrews, the home of golf.

Walked the hallowed fairways and up the 18th towards the club house, the Royal and Ancient Golf club of legend. The course was in very nice condition but very windy as it is renowned for and the rough is about waist high. Not many trees though! I did wonder how much the people playing had forked out for the pleasure.

Stayed the night in a quaint little B&B at Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen and after checking out the magnificent ruins of the Dunottar castle

( the scene of much conflict in the Jacobian uprising), headed to Aberdeen ( the old town) and then to the Northern Highlands through some magnificent, undulating and very productive countryside. When driving through these back areas (off the motorways) you often need to dodge tractors and farm machinery on the narrow, windy, stone-walled roads.

We visited Pennan, a tiny fishing village crammed onto the shore directly under the cliffs. It was the set for the movie "Local Hero" which we saw before we left. The shore front wasn't wide enough to do a "three point" turn and I had to point the car into a doorway to turn around!

After knowing Wooli in storms, we reckon being in these places would be a bit scary during big seas .....which is what they were having.

Then we headed off for Inverness via Macduff and Banff, very quaint places on the coast and we also visited Cawdor Castle ( where Macbeth is supposed to have been set) and the Culloden battlefields where the Jacobite Rising was halted in 1746. The scene of the last "hand to hand" combat on British soil.

So much to see and do in this beautiful place!