Aberdeenshire to Elgin

I have been surprised to see so much Canola (or as they say here, Rapeseed) being grown in Scotland. There are many acres and it is all in flower. I would have thought it would have been too cold, but apparently not. I have seen the Canola since I left Edinburgh.

Aberdeenshire is a beautiful area and as they say in their PR it runs from the ‘mountains to the sea’ and is located between 2 great rivers, the River Dee & the River Don.

I decided to take a drive and visit Balmoral Castle (the Queen’s summer home). The drive there was worth it on its own. You follow the River Dee through some picturesque countryside, towns and villages. The woodlands are lovely and there were many copses of Silver Birch trees. I love all the daffodils; they just seem to grow anywhere – along the side of the road, and in the woodlands. This morning I saw about a 20 metre length (on the roadside) of daffodils and bluebells – in the middle of nowhere! 

I enjoyed the visit to Balmoral, the grounds and gardens are lovely. You only see the ballroom of the castle, they now use that for exhibitions. As I left Balmoral it snowed! I did not expect that – even the locals were surprised. They told me recently they had 39cm of snow overnight. Thankfully these were more like snow-showers, but lovely to see.

On my way to Elgin I decided to take the scenic route and travelled through several coastal fishing villages such as: MacDuff, Banff, Portsoy and Buckie. All were delightful with old harbours, fishing boats and in Buckie they also build fishing boats. I did go into an aquarium in MacDuff, it is located on the edge of the North Sea and they constantly pump sea water into the tanks. It was interesting to see what fish and other sea creatures live in this cold sea.

I stopped in Buckie for lunch and there was a large crowd of people on both sides of the street opposite a church waiting for a wedding party to arrive. The wedding party did arrive and the bridal party were all dressed in beautiful dresses with thin straps and all in 8 degrees, they must have been freezing.

I did not have the time to see as much of Aberdeenshire as I would have liked – guess I will have to revisit some time.

Beautiful old bridge at Cullen

The garden at Balmoral Castle