The Other Don Kelly

These were our last few days in Scotland. We got in one more hike along the coast, I walked about town one last time taking pictures, and we spent some time at John & Donna’s new place. Then it was finally, officially time to head home.

The Moray Coast Trail

This was a section of coast to the west of Banff, between the towns of Portnockie and Cullen, with some picturesque rocks (and scary surf) just offshore. The main trail was a fairly mellow path, but you could also go exploring the rougher terrain if you wanted.

Last Walkabouts

These are some shots I took while walking around town. The first photo was from a walk between Gardenstown and Crovie, of some rocks that made cool sounds banging together in the surf, and the others were from a walk down and onto the harbour.

More Stately Mansions

I took a few interior photos of our cottage, and some external shots of John & Donna’s new house.

Parting Shots

And finally it was time to go. This first photo is on a touristy, decorated old fishing boat in town, planted with flowers and festooned with local kitsch — the little saying on the fish decoration is (supposedly) an example of Doric, a local Scots dialect. We passed this boat every day, and I took this on on our last night in town.

The seagull photo was the last one I took in Scotland; we were waiting for our ride and I couldn’t resist when the bird just landed outside our cottage.

And that was our trip!

It’s been months since our trip and the details are getting blurry, and I still have a bit more to get to, so here’s basically a mashup of several days where we did the tourist thing.

Balvenie and Glenlivet

Distillery tours! This is a must-do in the part of Scotland we visited. Aberdeenshire, as one local pub denizen emphatically told another while I eavesdropped, is not the Highlands, but we were very close to several famous distilleries, and I think this day trip was one of the highlights for Donna and John as tour guides. We hit two on this day: Balvenie and Glenlivet, to see how whisky was made. The big parts of their presentation had to do with malting and drying the malt, and the barrel aging of the whisky — the coopery that maintained their barrels was a point of pride for Balvenie. Needless to say, we got to sample what they had, from almost-raw whisky through the world famous finished products. (To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it through the sample flight at Balvenie, but I’m glad I did.) Very educational, and super fun.

Scenes About Gardenstown

This was a day I had to myself: John needed to do some legal/financial stuff for the house they were buying, and Donna & Anne were off on a shopping trip to Banff. I just spent the morning walking about Gardenstown, taking pictures of the different little sections: High Green where we were staying, Seatown where John & Donna’s rental (and new vacation home) were, and the harbor itself. (Mind you, all of these parts were withing spitting distance of each other — it really is a small town.)

I joined John in the afternoon, and we all went to dinner when the ladies got back.

The Falconry

This was another highlight, especially for Donna! She really like showing off her local discoveries, and this was an unexpected find from several years back when they were looking for fun things to do with Iain and Finn. It was fun for us too, and a real “touching grass” moment: the views all around, the look of the birds up close, and especially the feel of them landing and taking off from your hand…

The woman who owned the place was really nice too, she showed us around after the demonstration and then invited us in for tea.

Stay tuned for just a wee bit more, I have maybe one or two posts left in the series.

We did a few things on day three, but it started out with another picture-perfect morning:

Troup Head and Gannets

Our hike over Troup Head started among the barley fields and eventually led to a cliffside trail, where said cliff was home to a huge gannet colony. We could see them flying out over the water, and every so often we could get a view of the cliffs themselves, covered in birds.

We made two more stops on the drive home to check out some historic ruins: the stone circle on top of Aikey Brae, and the ruins of Deer Abbey.

Aikey Brae Standing Stones

This was a short drive from the Troup Head trailhead, and a short walk from our parking spot brought us to a sort of mini-Stonehenge where we ate our lunch — the site was built maybe 4000 years ago, and used for a few centuries in some way connected with lunar observations before falling into disuse. It was kind of neat, but I was disappointed to not get any vibes off the place.

Deer Abbey

Deer Abbey is the name of a monastery founded in the 12th century. It was converted into a manor home in the 16th century, eventually fell into ruin and is now a historic site. We stopped here on the drive home for a quick walk around.

Our Hike To Crovie

We did this hike later in the day, starting from Gardenstown.

Crovie is the next fishing town over, less than a mile to the east of Gardenstown along the beach. There used to be a road atop a seawall between the towns, but that washed away maybe 75 years ago, leaving a footpath accessible at low tide. There is also a footpath along the cliff, from the upper village at Gardenstown to the road into Crovie just outside of town, we walked this path to Crovie and took the beach path home. (I think this is one of Donna’s daily hikes when she’s there.)

This was our first full day in Scotland. John had some home-buying business to attend to, so we hung out mainly with Donna. We took a drive to the next town over to get some shopping done, then in the afternoon we went on a hike up to the ruins of St John’s Kirk.

These first shots are what greeted us in the morning, the view from our cottage:

On the way to/from our shopping destination, we stopped to admire the Scottish countryside, and also to take a photo that I think Donna’s been itching to take for years…

These next photos are from our hike up to St John’s Kirk, a ruined church (and still maintained cemetery) dating from about 1500-1600. Our route was on a trail up through a small gorge, known locally as the “Bloody Pits” because that’s where the locals threw the bodies after defeating a Viking invasion around AD 1000. Incredible views of the landscape, the North Sea and the village below as well as the kirk.

We had dinner that night at their rental cottage, one of the last nights they would be in it.