Exploring Aberdeenshire…without a car!

One of my biggest bugbears is when I move to a new area and people tell me you can’t explore without a car. When I moved to West Wales people told me I was lucky I had a car otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get out and about (which isn’t true) and when I moved up to Aberdeen people told me it was a shame I didn’t have a car because I’d struggle to get out of the city for mini adventures. I admit that in many ways having a car makes things much easier and sometimes I do miss having my own (I sold my car to fund my masters…and my ME was bad enough at the time I thought I shouldn’t drive). BUT it is entirely possible to get out and about using public transport, you just have to plan a little more. So, here are 5 places in the shire of Aberdeen that I would very much recommend and are totally accessible without a vehicle.

Crathes Castle and Drum Castle by bus

(If you’re reading this from the other side of the pandemic then you won’t need to pay attention to some of these details, but, if you’re mid pandemic there’s just the odd statement on how much these sites are open.)

The stagecoach 201 regularly leaves from Union Street and stops pretty much outside Drum Castle and then Crathes Castle, you just have to walk up the drive. When I first arrived here and first took a bus trip out to Crathes (for a beekeeping course) an old Aberdonian lady I’d been chatting to at the bus stop took it upon herself to sit next to me and point out things from her life spent in the area. It was really quite lovely but I can’t guarantee friendly old ladies if you take the 201! Anyway, Crathes Castle, which is run by National Trust Scotland, does castle tours, has a shop and café, a woodland play area and extensive grounds for walking. At the moment, only the grounds are open, but looking at the website it seems like they maybe planning for the rest of it to re-open around the 1^st September. Normally everything’s open all year.

Just up the road, or down the road, depending on how you look at it is Drum Castle. They have castle tours, a café and shop, a rose garden and lots of land to roam on. Currently, only their outdoor spaces are open, this means that their toilets are closed too. As above, I think that they may be planning to re-open some more bits on the 1^st September.

I’m not sure what else to say really. I mean they’re National Trust for Scotland properties, ‘it does what it says on the tin’. Good castle tours run by knowledgeable folk, great cafes, expensive shops and outside spaces humming with wildlife. I feel like you know what you’re getting when you turn up somewhere like this! I guess if you’re really keen you could do both castles in one day but alternately there is enough at each place to spend and enjoy a whole day. Depends what you’re looking for.

Newburgh seal colony and Forvie nature reserve by bus

The Stagecoach 61 takes you to the town of Newburgh and from there you can walk to the Newburgh grey seal colony which is down Beach Road past Newburgh Inn, or you can walk to the North and over the bridge across the River Ythan and enter the Forvie Nature Reserve. Right now the website for Forvie says ‘BUSY – PLEASE AVOID’ and I imagine that is probably also true for the seal colony. I don’t know if it has been busy or if they’ve been expecting it to be or what, but be sensible, obviously! As Nicky S says, if it looks busy, then it’s too busy! I think this is especially true for the seal colony. Just be respectful, don’t approach seals, don’t run around shouting, mind your dog, don’t be a dick. When I’ve been there the seals have been on the beach the other side of the river and in the water, so it’s been easy to just find a cosy spot on the sand and watch them. Forvie also has seals but is known for it’s colony of breeding eider ducks, which is the largest in Britain and the four species of tern that hang out there. The habitat here is really varied so it’s always interesting. There’s always something new to see. My supervisor has even seen a whale off the estuary, I can’t remember what kind…as a wild guess Minke maybe…but that’s certainly a story that keeps me returning to Forvie to scan the horizon!

Stonehaven by train

So, I’ve chosen a poor time to write this. I chose Stonehaven and Dunnottar castle partly because there’s a really quick and easy train there from Aberdeen. Not only is Aberdeen in its second week of local lockdown as I write this (meaning you shouldn’t travel more than 5 miles from the city) but there are no trains between Aberdeen and Dundee until the 3^rd September due to a tragic derailment. There is of course a bus replacement service though. Hopefully even if you can’t go anywhere right now, this might inspire you for the future.

Anyway, Stonehaven is a lovely little town. It has a museum, some cute little shops like ‘My Beautiful Caravan’ and eateries like the ‘The Marine Hotel’, which has a restaurant and bar run (?) by 6° North. …Actually, I’m not 100% sure what the full involvement of 6° North in The Marine Hotel is! Sorry! But I do know that the food and beer is excellent! There’s also a really cool harbour festival every year which I believe happens around August and a yearly new year’s fire festival. I haven’t been to that, yet, but I hear good things. Also in Stonehaven are the Dunnottar Woods, I’ve only been walking there once but they were much bigger and cooler than I expected.

The main attraction in Stonehaven, however, is Dunnottar Castle, which is a 30ish minute walk along the cliffs from the harbour. I’ve been twice, once in winter and once in summer. I’m already biased because I strongly dislike summer and I love winter but I would recommend a visit to the castle in the depths of winter! I first went in February and made sure that I got to the castle as soon as it opened. This meant I had the whole castle to myself for about half an hour. Walking up to that imposing structure on my own whilst the weather was cold, grey and hazy gave me so many feelings. Walking alone around the castle, including into dark little rooms that held witches (aka women!) and peering over the walls and down to the cold, unforgiving sea below gave me even more feelings! When I went in summer, the castle and surrounding cliffs were crawling with people. Crawling. Obviously it’s great people want to visit a historical site and I would never begrudge a place in need of constant upkeep earning £’s over the summer period BUT, personally, busy places are not my jam. Right now (August 2020), during the pandemic, the castle is open but you have to buy tickets online before you arrive.

Cruden Bay and New Slains by bus

Just up the road from Newburgh and Forvie, still on the stagecoach 61, is Cruden Bay and New Slains. Cruden Bay is a nice, well umm, bay, with a long beach… and just a short walk away through a wooded area and past a field is New Slains Castle. New Slains is a ruin resting on top of a cliff and colonised by seabirds. Its free to enter and there are no barriers so you can explore to your hearts content. If you’re feeling fit you can also walk North along the sea-cliffs to the Bullers of Buchan and at the right time of year these cliffs are busy with guillemots, kittiwakes and fulmar. I’m not sure how busy it gets here but I’ve visited before in August and there’s only been a handful of groups/families about and there’s plenty of room for you to avoid each other! I’ve heard that in it’s heyday this Baronial mansion saw the likes of folk like Bram Stoker who took inspiration from New Slains for his novel Dracula. Apparently, the building slowly fell into ruin after the roof was removed for tax avoidance reasons. I love nuggets of information like that.

Peterhead prison museum by bus

Also on the route of the Stagecoach 61 is Peterhead and in Peterhead is the Peterhead prison museum….which is currently open, but, like Dunnottar, I think they’re asking you to buy tickets online before you arrive. This museum is so cool for so many reasons. For a start it’s just interesting to see inside a prison that was still in use until 2013. There are also tonnes of stories about general prison life, a mock up of a dirty protest (which is definitely an assault on the senses) and loads of information on the Peterhead Prison riot back in 1987. I won’t say too much about it because I won’t do the story justice and I’ll definitely get stuff wrong, but the riot saw intervention by the SAS after the prisoners took hostages, including 56 year old Jackie Stuart. 33 years later, at 89 years old, Jackie Stuart is still regularly frequenting the museum and talking to tourists. It was so crazy interesting to meet him and have a chat. A prison might seem like an odd place to take a day trip but trust me, this place is awesome.

I’ve mentioned the Stagecoach 61 three times now (they’re not paying me!!!), and incidentally this bus also stops at another cool place that’s worth a very brief mention. I’ve not explored Ellon extensively but I have been to two places there that are worth visiting; ‘Coffee Apothecary’ and the BrewDog mothership. Getting public transport to one of the best breweries in the UK is obviously a very sensible idea!

So, if you aren’t able to drive or just don’t want to these are 5 great options that’ll hopefully give you some inspiration for exploring the county by public transport. If you are able to drive but you don’t have your own vehicle then I can definitely recommend co-wheels car club. They’re a company that have cars dotted about all over the UK but they have lots within Aberdeen. They’ve got manuals and automatics, electrics and petrols, smalls cars, big cars and vans! I’ve used them a lot for day trips and I’ve regularly decided that I don’t want to come home yet and extended my booking just by tapping a few things in the co wheels app. I’ve lost my access card, called the co wheels number and gained entry with a regular chip and pin in my wallet within minutes. Anyway, I’ll stop trying to sell co-wheels to you now (I don’t have shares!), just know they’re a good option!

Right then, well, happy exploring!

Aberdeen

I love Aberdeen! It’s a bit of a marmite city, I know. The most common negatives I hear are that it’s ugly, it’s unfriendly and there’s nothing to do and I would disagree (and frequently do) on all of those points. I get surprisingly defensive of this city that is absolutely not my own, as in I didn’t grow up here and I haven’t lived here that long!

Now, having said that, when I came up here to meet my now supervisors, I flew and then took the bus into the city from the airport. The stretch of Aberdeen that bus route follows is mostly pretty bleak and as soon as I could I phoned my mum all teary that I didn’t think I could live here. My memory of Aberdeen from my navy days was really shoddy, I remembered bits of the harbour, the maritime museum and the beach but that was it. It wasn’t enough to make me feel better about moving here. Luckily though, I stayed at the Carmelite hotel near The Green and the harbour and walked to the university through old Aberdeen and the Cruickshank botanical gardens. This turned things around an awful lot. I mean, obviously! I live here now and as I said I love it. Now, if my friends fly up I tell them to close their eyes on the bus! When they’re here, at some point in their stay, I take almost everyone on the same walk…or at least portions of it, because altogether it’s a long one. As lockdown has now eased a little and we have some more freedom to move around I thought it seemed a good time to mention my favourite places along that walk. Maybe it’ll give you some inspiration.

Old Aberdeen

The ‘tour’ starts with a solid walk from Mounthooly (because that’s where I live) to Old Aberdeen and that takes about 20 – 30 minutes. I found out very recently that Mounthooly lies on an old leper colony, which was mercifully unnecessary by the early 1600s. Luckily, the bodies weren’t buried along my street so I didn’t have to lie awake at night thinking about that for too long! The first stop on my tour is what remains of the ‘Snow Kirk’ which was originally founded way back in 1497. This is a tiny little Catholic graveyard hidden behind high walls within college bounds. For me, the most exciting thing about this is that barely anyone seems to know it’s there! I don’t really know the ins and out of the reformation but I do know that it wasn’t a great time to be a practicing Catholic. Many held Mass secretly and buried their loved ones in secret Catholic kirkyards in keeping with their faith. The Snow Kirk, or the kirkyard of St Mary of the Snows, was, for a time, one such secret graveyard.

From the kirkyard I take people through Powis gate, which looks like a classic Disney castle tower and towards Kings College. Kings College was founded by William Elphinstone in 1494 and there’s a fetching memorial to him outside. The interesting thing, I think, is that the memorial was meant to be fitted on top of his tomb, inside the chapel. But, when it was transported to Aberdeen it turned out to be too big to go through the door. Doh!

Just up the road from Elphinstone is my favourite university campus café, Kilau. Great coffee, great food, magnificent brownies! This place on my ‘grand route’ is a great time to stop so I normally encourage it!

Sometimes, I take people through the alleyway near Kilau to go and look at the library. It’s pretty impressive and although I rarely take people inside it has a cool internal structure too. I gather there are some mixed opinions about the practicality of this though! Another rare but occasional detour is the Cruickshank botanical garden and rarer still the universities zoology museum. Both are definitely worth a visit though. The gardens are a nice spot for a picnic, I saw my first red squirrel and my first waxwings here.

Seaton Park and the River Don

This next stretch is again about 20 – 30 minutes…obviously much longer with stopping for coffees, taking photos or just generally looking at stuff!

The next ‘stop’ is St Machar Cathedral. To get there you have to walk down the Chanonry. This is a pretty area but it was once terrorised by ‘Spring-heeled Jack’. ‘Spring-heeled Jack’ could silently leap over high walls and breathed fire. He had clawed hands and red eyes and wore numerous disguises. This assailant normally resided in London but appeared in Aberdeen in the late 1800s. People saw him well into the 20^th century. Crazy!

When I first arrived, I read on the internet somewhere that the left upper quarter of William Wallace was rumoured to be buried behind a star in St Machar cathedral. I’d tell my friends this in my best impression of a castle tour guide’s ghost story voice but just at the beginning of this year I found out that was certainly not true. Damn internet facts! Despite the lack of famous historical body parts the cathedral is still worth a visit. The ceiling in particular is pretty astounding.

Just behind St Machar is the enormous Seaton Park. There are areas here where I feel like I am absolutely not in a city anymore. The walk along the river to the beach is really lovely, I’ve seen seals from the Brig o’ Balgownie and although I haven’t seen them here personally, people have reported really good views of otters.

After Seaton Park is left behind (and I’ve taken my friends across a super busy road) the Donmouth nature reserve starts. There are some little paths that wind through the estuary and there’s a small hide just off the road. If I’m honest I find this section a little disappointing but without it it’s a long stretch of boring pavement until you reach the sea.

Aberdeen Seafront

I don’t have an awful lot to say about the seafront. I mean, it’s just nice to be by the sea, isn’t it? Between Donmouth and the Aberdeen Beach Ballroom it’s just you and the sand but after that there’s one or two things I sometimes point out. The first thing is ‘the last tram line’ which is on the Links between the Hilton hotel and the beach there’s a little stretch of tram line still visible. I normally point at them and say “that’s Aberdeen’s last tram line”. That’s it! That’s all I have. I’m pretty sure no one but me has ever thought this was cool. But I’ll keep trying!

Just as a little interlude (because I’ve never taken anyone here), there’s a place nearby called Trinity Cemetery. Within it is the unmarked grave of the Cornish steersman and quartermaster, Robert Hichens, who was on the Titanic. I’ve read somewhere that at the time of the accident he was at the helm…of course steering under the orders of an officer. He survived in one of the few lifeboats alongside an American millionairess, but life wasn’t particularly rosy for him following the tragedy and ended with him being placed in an Aberdonian cemetery without a marker.

Incidentally this cemetery is very near Gallows Hill, which, as you can probably guess is where people enjoyed watching the odd hanging up until the late 1700s. The last fellow to lose his life there was Alexander Morison, who murdered his wife with an axe. The death wasn’t quick or clean and he was left there hanging in chains as a warning. If you haven’t noticed by now I’m drawn to some of the darker parts of history!

But anyway, back to ‘the tour’! Carrying on down the Beach Boulevard from the Beach Ballroom there are some shops and cafés plus adventure golf and a funfair. But, for me, the place of note is the Highland Bus. Again, I don’t have any pictures but it’s an old double decker bus by the sea with a café in it! I mostly just really like the novelty but the food’s pretty good too.

Footdee

After tea and cake in the bus, the next stop is Footdee. Footdee, pronounced ‘Fittie’, is about a 20-30 minute walk from Donmouth along the beach. Footdee is a really pretty old fishing village full of little cottages that surround squares mostly containing ‘sheds’ and garden areas. I put ‘sheds’ in apostrophes because this doesn’t quite do them justice, they’re very cool and very creative. The whole area has a really folksy, arty vibe. I think it’s important to remember that people do actually live here though. It’s great to enjoy the space but with the respect owed to any residential area.

One of my favourite stories relating to Footdee is that, at some point in time, when the fishermen went out to sea their wives would not wash any clothes. They feared that by churning up the wash water they would also churn up the sea causing potentially fatally bad weather for their husbands. I think I read that at the Aberdeen maritime museum, which is just along the harbour and definitely worth a visit.

Aberdeen Harbour

From Footdee I like to walk along the harbour all the way towards Union Square, which takes about 20 minutes. Aberdeen Harbour is apparently Britain’s oldest recorded business, first being mentioned way back in 1136. These days it’s full of standby and supply vessels from the oil fields and the odd ferry. A lot of this is about reminiscing for me…I mean, I really didn’t enjoy the navy but I like to think about it sometimes and, objectively, I still find the ships, the big anchors and huge chains pretty cool. I always hope my friends will too! I also love some of the ship’s names: “Standard Viking” is among my favourites. As you get closer to Union Square there’s also a very cool Nuart painting. Nuart is all over Aberdeen but this, I think, is the first one featured along this walk.

The Green

Just before reaching Union Square I turn off and head into ‘The Green’. There’s not a huge amount I have to say about this area but there is some great Nuart around, including my favourite, the doughnuts. There’s also a fab little café called Contour café here and a great pub called CASC, which sells good coffee, ale, Scotch whisky and cigars.

Home

From The Green there are a couple of options. Not far away are a couple of my favourite pubs, Fierce beer and the Castlegate Brewdog, enough said. If we’re not ready for a drink and my friends aren’t ready to kill me after a brutally extensive ‘tour’ there’s the Tollbooth museum. I love this place, which, like the maritime museum is free. The Tollbooth is an incredibly well preserved 17^th century gaol and has loads of sweet information about the evolution of the city, witches, the people that were gaoled there and escape attempts. If my friends weren’t ready to go home before, they almost definitely are after the museum. Home is passed another Brewdog and along Gallowgate. Gallowgate was the execution site before Gallows Hill and I’ve read somewhere that it saw the end of multiple witches but I haven’t been able to find this information again since! Aberdeen has an incredibly rich (and terrible) witch hunting history that I really want to learn more about.

This ‘tour’ is bloody long and it only covers a small part of what the city has to offer. Aberdeen is full of history, art, nature, good beer and although I agree it’s pretty shite at advertising itself, it’s normally full of cool events. I feel like people can give this Northern city a hard time but, although its not perfect, it’s 100% worth a visit, or exploring more if you’re already here.

Most of this information is gathered from a couple of books and an extensive website, which I’ll mention below, and the rest of it is from who knows where! They’re just tidbits of information I’ve gathered from here and there and they may or may not be true! I’d reckon that those tidbits are from museums and castles I’ve visited but you know how those facts get skewed once you’ve not touched on them for a while!

“Hidden Aberdeen – History on your doorstep and under your feet” by Dr Fiona-Jane Brown

“The guide to mysterious Aberdeen” by Geoff Holder

The “Doric columns” blog – https://doriccolumns.wordpress.com/

Tiny Adventure: Nairn!

I think this was the start of the COVID-19 tipping point for me. Everything had been more or less ‘business as usual’ before. My boyfriend was supposed to be meeting me up in Nairn for us to spend the weekend together before I finished the last two weeks of my internship in Raigmore hospital. But, as a diabetic he’s in an ‘at risk’ category for the virus and was concerned (understandably) about being on a busy train…so, he didn’t come. We had had our first positive case in the community but I considered the risk and it seemed a little early, up in the Highlands, for me not to jump on a 20 minute train to a place where I would be predominantly alone for the weekend. So, I went!

14th March

I already had all my important picnic and Perk donut supplies before I arrived in Nairn which meant that I could head straight off on my walk. No messing around!

I walked from the train station to the harbour where I was greeted by a tonne of redshank (pretty little wading birds with red legs) and a turnstone (another pretty little wading bird!). I wandered passed the harbour and along the harbour wall to stare at the sea for a bit and figure out that the land in front of me belonged to the Black Isle.

I carried on along the beach to RSPB Culbin Sands where I found a delightful, pretty much undamaged, conch shell and watched a pair of bar tailed godwits and a load of black headed gulls. I kept walking until I could cross a little river onto the salt marsh next to Culbin Forest. I’ve been trying to wrack my brains but I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where the forest has met the beach in quite the same way before. The forest comes to the edge of the cliffs between Aberystwyth and Clarach in West Wales and the woods follow the clifftop walk around the Robin Hoods Bay area in North Yorkshire but it’s different. It just seemed super magical for the forest to meet the saltmarsh and then for that to become sandy beach.

I decided that as I was on my own, and for once didn’t really want to be, I’d cheer myself up by finding a few geocaches in Culbin Forest. Geocaching is like an adult treasure hunt! All over the place and all around the world are hidden caches. Some are magnetic and look like a little blunt bullet and others are big boxes. They all have paper inside where you can write your name and the date you found the cache but the bigger ones have toys or trackers inside that you can take and swap. If you take a tracker you can log it and move it to another geocache around the world and see where it has travelled. To find them you just have to sign up for the geocaching app and that tells you roughly where they are. There’s often a hint if you’re struggling and sometimes, if you really can’t find the cache, pictures and comments from other geocachers. The general idea is that its all a bit of a secret and that you don’t want somebody (especially a ‘muggle’) to know that you’re geocaching, which makes it difficult when you’re searching for a tiny cache in the middle of a busy city!

I found two in Culbin forest.

I was knackered after my walk about in the forest so I headed to check in to my Airbnb. I dropped my things, sat down for a while and then went out to buy food and bubble bath because I can never pass up the opportunity to get in the tub.

So, I noticed when I was mooching about the kitchen that the sponge was really old and well used and that there was half a bottle of sour milk in the fridge plus old bread and eggs in the cupboard. I thought it was a little gross but I shrugged it off because I thought maybe it was an environmental choice. When I got back I couldn’t get any of the electric wall heaters to work but I shrugged that off too because I guessed I’d just figure it out later. I tried to run a hot bath but there wasn’t enough hot water. I boiled water on the stove and in the kettle, but because the air temperature was so cold I couldn’t heat water quick enough to offset the bath cooling! I stayed in there all of 10 seconds before I decided it was just too sad. When I got out I also made more of a concerted effort to get the heating going but actually none of the power sockets worked, I couldn’t find anything that would resemble a ‘master switch’ and there was no welcome book or instructions to follow. The place was freezing. There was no hot water bottle or blankets and by this point it felt to late to be messaging the host to ask for help, so I just wore my scarf hat and down jacket inside! What I did find when I was searching about was just how dusty everything was. There was even a sad face drawn in the dust in the bedroom. The whole place wasn’t actually that clean. I think the nice décor had fooled me! I heated up my microwave curry and ate it wondering when was too early to go to bed. When I did decide to go to bed and I pulled the covers back there were hairs on the pillows and in the bed. Fucking grim. It makes me wonder whether they bothered changing the sheets or whether they just made the bed again. I put my t-shirt (which was dusty because I dropped it on the bathroom floor) over the pillow and laid the frayed and holey towel where I was going to sleep. I slept in my down jacket and hat but I still felt a bit grossed out anyway! If I’d have noticed these things earlier I would have just gone home to the Raigmore!

I fell asleep to the sounds of drunk people buying kebabs outside my window and woke up at 5.45 am to the sound of a persistent car alarm. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough!

I obviously left an extensive review with my host and a more measured, less defamatory public review but I haven’t heard back from the lady yet. All I can say is stay somewhere other than the Royal Apartments in central Nairn!

15th March

In the morning I headed to the Basil Harbour Café for a breakfast of ‘eggy bread’, bacon, maple syrup and a much needed cappuccino. In hindsight it probably wasn’t a good call in terms of social distancing but it was all still very much a grey area at that point and it was only just creeping in to Northern Scotland. The breakfast was super good though! My plan was to walk to Whiteness Point, West of Nairn, using the ‘Walk Highlands’ inland route and then return along the beach. The walk inland was ‘nice’, I saw my first skylark of the year, singing. It was fine, but it was long and a little relentless. There weren’t any wow moments and it actually got to a point on the beach where I could see the point but decided it wasn’t actually worth walking to it!

When I looked up the beach towards Nairn the thought of walking 4 – 5 miles (ish) along pebbles and sand just seemed brutal so I decided to walk along the same inland route I arrived on. There were three geocaches along the route so I thought ‘why not?’, it made it more interesting.

By the time I got back to Nairn I was knackered so I picked up another Cappuccino from Basil and then headed to the station early.

It definitely wasn’t my greatest mini-adventure but I was glad to get lots of fresh air before the inevitable COVID lock down and I managed to walk over 15 miles on the last day which must be more than I’ve managed to walk in years. So, that’s something!