Discovering new places: a wee trip to Royal Deeside

Last week Dave and I spent a lovely two days exploring Royal Deeside (as well as Perthshire and Angus!) with Dave's mum and dad. We spent the night in Ballater, a pleasant wee town that I can imagine gets extremely busy at peak summer times.

We've not done a lot apart from working this summer, and haven't really left the Borders much at all. Obviously we do love the Borders a lot, but when you've been so busy with work and days off have been spent recovering and being lazy, you forget how therapeutic a change of scene can be.

It was a bit of a busman's holiday in some ways, as we did visit a number of historic sites along the way, but it was nice to see them from the other side for a change.

First stop on Monday was the village of Dunning in Perthshire, to visit St Serf's Church and the Dupplin Cross. We enjoyed an extremely informative talk about the cross from the very knowledgeable Paul.

 

That talk really helped our understanding of the Pictish stones we saw at our next stop, the stone museum in Meigle. However our tummies were rumbling by this point so we drove on to Forfar and stopped for world famous Forfar bridies. This was a first for me, and I really enjoyed it! It was so tasty that it wasn't around long enough for me to take a picture.

After lunch we visited Edzell Castle, which is a really interesting place. The castle itself is great, but the walled garden is something really special. I can only imagine how beautiful it must be when everything is in bloom. 

 

 We also met a charming peacock, and I was quite fascinated by its lovely colours!

After refreshments and a wee walk round Ballater, a good night's sleep was in order after an interesting day!

The next morning we took a lovely drive from Ballater to Balmoral, then on to Braemar and eventually Glenshee. The sun was spilling through the trees as we drove alongside the River Dee. It was a beautiful day, spent in a beautiful part of Scotland. 

I jumped out to take a few photos at Glenshee but they didn't capture its beauty in the way I would have liked. It was really special to return to this part of Scotland after my walk on the Cateran Trail last year - it brought back very fond memories!

We spent the afternoon at Scone Palace which I did enjoy, although I have to say I prefer ruined castles to more recently decorated palaces! However the history of former Augustinian abbey at Scone is fascinating.

We also met some friendly hairy coos, and really enjoyed the star-shaped maze in the grounds!

 

 

 

 

Then it was home for a much needed rest!!

It was a lovely few days, and really nice to get a change of scene and discover new and different places in this wonderful country of ours.

I can't believe September is marching on by so quickly, but I do love autumn, so I'm hoping there will be more outdoor adventures ahead!