Day 100 Rosehearty to Portsoy

 

 Date: Thursday 31^th May 2012   Distance: 31.16 Miles

 

. We slept OK. Because there was no chance of cooked breakfast till after 9 am we had to make our own. We made sure we had plenty of toast and cereal as there would be miles of up that morning. So- not an ideal start!

 

On a brae outside of Rosehearty and overlooking the North Sea is Mounthooly Doocot. Built in 1800 by Lord Garden when he bought the Pitsligo Estate, it is castellated and its setting makes a grand picnic site. We have seen many dove or pigeon cots on our coast journey and the practise was brought to Britain by the Normans. The young birds were usually eaten, in pies, roasted, in stews and also sometimes the eggs were consumed. The adult birds were usually for rearing. Guano was used for fertiliser, in gunpowder making and tanning. Some doocots were merely follies.

 

In a field overlooking the sea we passed  what looked like a cylindrical log cabin advertised as hobbit luxury camping. We found out later that it cost £35 for 2 people, £40 for 3 and £45 for 4. It looked a novel way to camp with a separate toilet block.

 

Just down the road was a farm with curly horned sheep and many many peacocks displaying all over the place at the females- A photographer’s paradise. The larks had been soaring all morning and we spied a solitary female deer beside the river.

 

Need for refreshment sent us to Gardenstown, down a steep hill to the sea. The town is built on a series of terraces, set in the cliffs of Gamrie Bay. The pub was shut but we could have had a take-away coffee in the little local shop, but there was nowhere to sit. The public loos by the harbour were cordoned off for refit and had been for 3 months, a local said.

 

There was a portaloo, which was excessively smelly and the water had run out for hand-washing, but we begrudgingly used it out of necessity (Thank goodness for anti bacterial gel)  Any facilities in this part of Scotland were so thin on the ground you had to make the most of what there was!

 

We watched a small red boat crammed with 5 young people go out of the harbour with boxes labelled cetaceous research. The possibility of seeing dolphins or other large sea life seems less remote now.

 

It was hard pushing the bike back up to the route we were taking, then up more hills, past a demoralising signpost telling us it was still 10 miles to Macduff when Bob knew it could only be 6. It was gradually down to Macduff where there was a small harbour and busy workshops for the shipping industry- a lot of men in hard hats welding and banging.

 

Lunchtime doesn’t seem a good time for pubs to be open as we find another one with no food- but we were directed to a little cafe up some stairs off the street, with views of the sea and harbour. Harbour cafe was very small but with fast service and tasty fare. When a party of 8 came in from a boat trip we felt we should go to make room for them. If the trip had been shorter we might have been tempted too but it was 3 hours long, and, they didn’t see dolphins!

 

There was a path alongside the harbour which we took to Banff. As we got near to the town we saw there was quite an issue with dog poo. Most places so far have been acceptably clean and there were signs for fines here, obviously ignored. A county town with preserved 17th and 18th century houses, Banff looked like it might be interesting to spend a while. We did consider Duff House but decided it would be expensive for a ”nip in and out” especially when art – not Bob’s cup of tea- is the main attraction. After following signs to the town museum we found it to be only open on a Sunday afternoon. Eyes peeled for dolphins we pressed on with the occasional spot of rain.

 

 

We arrived in Port Soy at 4.20 under blue sky and in sunshine after sea watching from a 6 mile stretch of cycleway. We were to stay in the Station Hotel which we found very friendly with a nice room at the front by the road which was surprisingly busy at all hours.

Before eating we went for a walk around the picturesque 17th century harbour. I looked around the marble shop and bought an onyx dice- not too heavy a gift to take home! Tortsoy marble is worked in one of the warehouses in the harbour that are original and restored.

We had an earlybird meal- 2 courses for £12-salmon mousse and real melba toast, Cullen skink and oat cakes followed by beef and ale pie and egg pineapple and gammon. The food here has a good reputation and we certainly enjoyed it.

 

At 7pm we were going to a short play put on by the local dramatic group- children and adults- a modern naughty take on the fairy tale the 3 little pigs. We were concerned that we might not understand if the local accent was broad. In fact most people we talked to on the whole trip were very easy to understand. Bob won a bottle of wine in the raffle after the performance.

 

Port Soy has a nice community feel to it. There are several different types of shops and I sampled some homemade ice cream from one of them. As we walked around the little manmade Loch Soy, mainly a large duck pond, with my teeth slightly glued together from the unusual ingredient of Turkish delight in my ice, we watched the sugar pink horizon, taking in the Black Isle where we would head tomorrow.

 

The Shore Inn back at the Harbour is a real ale establishment. Bob liked his pint of Orkney beer but I left mine when someone shouted “Dolphins!” and we and others including the barmaid rushed out to see. If they had been there, then they had gone. It was getting dark and we returned to the hotel to sleep till 5 when the traffic, despite double glazing, woke us.