Cats, Beaches, Castles, Cows and Whiskey - North East Scotland

You may have noticed our blogs have been a bit behind. We have been enjoying a little downtime which has been really nice! But we have finally got our writing caps back on and hope to bring you a little slice of our life driving beautiful nightmare roads, eating massive breakfasts, never knowing what day it is, sometimes not remembering where we are or where we have been, staying at yet another BnB and hunting down another good value for money meal. 

So far we are enjoying every minute of our time in Scotland, and could not have imagined a place so rich in beauty.

Pitlochry

The guest house we stayed in was a gorgeous old Victorian Manor, with a massive room which was a rare pleasure for us. 

With most of the places we are staying in we are not really spending time in that specific place, but rather using it as a launching pad to see the sights around it and take long scenic trips to our next stop. While there is beautiful scenery seemingly everywhere in Scotland, the scenery is different in each place we go. Meaning that even though we spend our days looking at jawdropping scenery the next day is equally as breathtaking as it changes uniquely. 

Our morning in Pitlochry was spent taking a leisurely scenic drive around the area stopping at some rapids where kayakers were training, and then onto some other beautiful lochs. 

 

At one of the lochs we were enjoying the scenery when we noticed a stray cat on the prowl and I mean this little guy was hungry and there wasn’t a single safe duck in sight. At first we thought he wouldn’t dare try anything but then watched him completely stalk his duck prey and just before he pounced we scared the duck away. We appreciate this is nature but we couldn’t stomach watching this. He was not deterred by his failed kill attempt so he continued his hunt for lunch, but we had done our good deed for the day.

One very hungry and determined cat on the prowl.

We stopped at the Queens View as it is one of the most photographed scenes in Scotland. Definitely a beautiful spot, but as our journey through Scotland continues particularly through the Scottish Highlands a view like this one becomes almost common place. 

On our way to Royal Deeside we went through the high mountain ranges of The Spittal of Glenshee – simply breathtaking. Amy was driving but was so desperate to take photos we swapped drivers, only so Simon could stop every few minutes for Amy to get out and spend 15 minutes photographing.

We passed the Queen in her Balmoral castle. We considered knocking on the door for some tea, but continued on our way, after all we can make tea in our BnB.

We arrived at our next cute little BnB in Royal Deeside – we are now becoming BnB experts. We were greeted with an open fire place and the most superb living area, where we spent several hours sorting our photos and planning our next blog. We really couldn’t have asked for anything more perfect on a rainy cold night. 

Royal Deeside

We had originally planned to visit Balmoral Castle as part of our Deeside tour but turns out they don’t let you in when Royals are staying there. Instead we hit the road to the coast to take in a gorgeous ruined castle, Scottish beaches and beautiful scenery all along the way.

The drive to the beach was through some beautiful countryside moving from forests to hills to farmland and finally to the sea. On arrival at Stonehaven we walked the beach and skimmed some stones and reflecting on just how good we have it in Australia with our beaches.

Moving on we sought out the nearby Dunnottar castle ruins that are meant to be spectacular. En route we got distracted by a hilltop monument and decided to walk to it, on reaching the base of that hill we saw the castle in the distance and went in that direction instead. Along the way we saw jagged cliff faces, dark stone beaches at the base of sheer drops and cows. This whole walk was magical, a perfect moment in our Scotland journey. 

Yep... Cows.

We walked all the way down to the entrance of the castle but on arrival we were turned off by the steep entrance fee of what is essentially ruined stone walls. We turned to look up at the huge amount of steps we had just walked all the way down and braced ourselves to walk all the way back up. 

Departing the beach we made for whiskey territory in the north. Negotiating four hundred round abouts, dodging a dozen speed cameras and crawling through traffic we made it to Glenfiddich distillery. For those of you unfamiliar this is the Penfolds of Whiskey. Best of all the tour is completely free and includes sampling the 12, 15 and 18 years whiskey. Simon took the lion’s share of the samples with Amy behind the wheel. 

Our guide showed similar levels of (un)enthusiasm as our Neuschwanstein guide but we don’t hold it against them, it must get repetitive doing the same tour 6 times a day 5 days a week. Having had our fill of delicious whiskey and checking out the impressive gift shop (and not buying anything) Amy navigated us to our next stop of Inverness.

For us some of the best part of our journey is not the Scottish towns but rather the amazing scenery on the roads to our next destination.

Xoxo

Simon and Amy