Not Long Enough in Angus and Aberdeenshire - heading home

Now it will become clear just how little time we had to get up from southern Scotland to the northern coast of Aberdeenshire and have any quality time at all.  What were we thinking? And when I got home and actually looked at my diary, turns out we had planned much longer and weren't meant to leave until yesterday. Instead, we got home the day before yesterday. So I ask again, what were we thinking?

I was feeling the pressure of time and wanted us to find a campsite last night as near as possible so we could squeeze in as much as we could.  We ended up at Cruden Bay campsite, not actually on the bay at all.  And there was absolutely no one else there.  The caravan parked near us had no one in it the whole time we were there.  Kind of spooky, but peaceful and we never actually meet anyone at these places because we tend to breeze in late and leave early.  The man at reception couldn't have been nicer and loaned us a hose so we could top up our water. We also had electricity, so what else did we need?

Oh, a heater would have been good!  It did get a bit cold last night and our dog seemed to feel it a bit more than I expected.  The camper has heat but we also don't know how much gas we have left and we didn't think we actually needed heat (until we woke up!).  Lucky thing, we had agreed on an early start home anyway.

Farmland and offshore wind turbines

We almost beat Aberdeen rush hour traffic and stopped along the beach for a while just to catch our breath.  Odd to see the offshore wind turbines but they don't really bother me.  I do hope they have figured out a way to prevent injury to birds though.

Interesting road not taken in Brechin

We passed through Brechin.  One place we would have stopped in, but there was absolutely no place to park our big vehicle.  So many things we have put on a list for when we return in a normal car....

The goal today was to get a Forfar Bridie.  Bridies are a Scottish meat pastry made with steak and onions. The recipe originated in Forfar. There are two theories about this according to the baker who specialises in them. One is that they were developed as the wedding meal, or the Bride's meal. And they are horse shoe shaped for good luck.  (In Scotland, brides are given horseshoes after their wedding for good luck. Not real horseshoes I might add! Just ones purchased in card shops!)  The other theory is that a woman with the last name of Bridie started making them.  I like the Bride's meal theory the best!  But, since they originated in Forfar, like the Arbroath Smokie, I wanted an authentic one!  After searching the internet, I located what seemed to be the perfect place to buy our Bridies - McFarlane Bakers.  So we parked the camper and walked in the rain straight to this place.  Bought our Bridies and virtually headed straight back to the car park. Because it was raining, neither one of us brought a camera so these photos are taken with my phone!

I must admit, we were disappointed once we got back to our camper and had our Bridie's for lunch. They were nothing at all like the Bridie's we had experienced in the past.  So I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were using the original recipe.  When I got home, I did a bit of research and it seems Forfar is the only place that uses shortcrust pastry and not flaky pastry, strike one. Then I read that onions were optional and we have always had onions in others, strike two.  Oh well, I just enjoy the experience of trying local food and this was one of them!

On our route back to the camper after our Bridie purchase was a butcher getting a beef delivery.  This is a scene you don't often see much anymore, even in Scotland!

Not much more to say about this journey, except I am embarrassed we planned so badly and had such a small amount of time for such a huge undertaking.  Lucky we live in Scotland and will use this as a learning experience. Can't wait to get back up to this area!





“The perfect journey is never finished, the goal is always just across the next river, round the shoulder of the next mountain. There is always one more track to follow, one more mirage to explore.” ― Rosita Forbes