Scotland - Day 6

Day 23 - Scotland - Day 6 (September 21)

The chilly weather is still holding but the rain is over on the West Coast so we’re happy to put warm clothes on. After getting up and taking our bags to the car we went back to the hotel for breakfast. Today we are driving up past Dundee to the seaside town of Arbroath.

Leaving Perth city center we cross the River Tay and take the A85 which connects with the A90, a four lane divided highway with speeds averaging about 70 mph. We have a nice drive up to Dundee when traffic slows, but we skirt the town and soon pick up speed again, navigating our way through a half dozen roundabouts.

Leaving Dundee behind we head for the coast taking the A972 and A92 up to Arbroath where we manage to locate the local tourist bureau, right next to the boat harbor. Walking into the lobby, a young lady came over to help us with thing to do. One suggestion was to go for a short hike out along the coast on the bluff above the North Sea to another small town called Auchmithie. There was a really great little restaurant there called “The But and Ben” where we could have lunch. After that, we could go to the Abby ruins before leaving town. This all sounded like a pretty good idea, so we said, “Why Not”. Famous last words…

With our decision to go for a seaside hike, she suggested we make reservations for lunch as it is a small place and usually very busy. So we asked her to do that for us. Since it was only 9:50 AM, I thought we could be there by noon, so that was our reservation.

Leaving the visitor center we drove through town and down to the end of the quay for the start of our hike. After parking the car we got our boots on, sweaters and jackets grabbed our cameras and headed up onto the bluffs. Most of the area is on Devonian Sandstone and the cliffs have been eroded to fantastic shapes. http://www.geoplacestogo.org.uk/#/arbroath-geodiversity-trail/4534755397 . The trail is part of a Geodiversity project supported by the British Geologic Survey. We made good time, even with stops but the distance turned out to be about five miles instead of three and Tina was pretty tired by the time we got there.

We got to the small building with the restaurant just a few minutes past noon and went inside. The waitress seated us at a table and brought us a pot of tea. This was heavenly as we were in a warm, dry room with a hot drink. I had the specialty, smoked haddock in a white sauce wrapped in a thin pancake. This came with two boiled potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli plus a hot buttered scone. Yummy!! Tina had the lobster salad which turned out to be a whole chilled lobster split in two with a small side salad of mixed greens along with a hot buttered scone. Yummy too!!

After lunch we decided to catch the bus back to Arbroath so we spent some time walking around town, down to the beach and the old boat harbor before the bus came. We caught the 2:30 PM bus for the ten minute ride into Arbroath and got off in the middle of town, about a mile from the car. Arriving at the quay, Tina was slowing down so I headed off for the car and drove back to pick her up.

We went back into town to the Visitor Center and asked for help making reservations for our nights lodging. While that was being done we jokingly let the young lady know that the hike is a bit longer than three miles. She couldn’t believe it so she got a copy of the trail map and in the first paragraph found, “…winds along the path to Auchmithie for about 9 kilometers.” She was very apologetic, but we told her we had a good walk, just a little longer than expected.

Once we had our reservation we drove up to the Abbey Ruins where we took a few photos. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/arbroath/arbroathabbey/index.html . Since it was about ten pounds to get into the museum and walk around the abbey we decided to give it a pass - much to Tina’s relief.

Leaving Arbroath Abbey we headed out on A92 for the fifteen mile drive into Montrose and our B&B, the Oaklands Guesthouse. After registering we took our bags up to the room and took some time to relax before dinner. After a while I took the NetBook downstairs and got a good high speed internet connection and uploaded the last five days worth of photos and wrote the blog. We walked across the street and back towards town about 7:00 PM to a small local pub where we had a very nice dinner, then returned to the Inn and called it a night.

Photos are up - yippee!! Go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski