Scotland day 1 & 2

Hi lovelies,

Yesterday we left the beautiful Frankfurt and headed west to the delightful green land that is Scotland.

Scotland from the air Lots of turbines here

We landed in Edinburgh, and while it showed signs that it had been raining, the sky was clear.

That was close to the last good news for the day. For those who read about our sad plight when we collected our Campervan in New Zealand, this one was not any better.

We were to be collected from the airport, but there was no-one there. 🥺. We waited a bit then thankfully a lovely lady allowed us to use her phone to call the hire company and find out where we were to be collected. Alas, they were short staffed so asked us to get a cab and they would pay for it when we arrived.

The cab driver was lovely, and gave us some advise as to how to get on the road we needed when we got our van.

We arrived at the depot, filled out the required paperwork and were told our van would be about 1/2 hour before it was ready. Some 2 hours later, Robbie asked and they said it would just be a little longer.

We finally got the walk through of the van, found out how things work, got all our luggage on board and headed off. Only 200 yards down the road the check engine light came on, and unlike Penny from The Big Bang Theory, I was not putting a sticker over it. 😊

Robbie did a u-turn and we headed back to the depot. There was a problem with the vehicle, and as they had no vans left we were given one that was for sale in the yard. Everyone quickly worked to transfer all the gear, get the bedding, cooking equipment, luggage etc all into the new van so we could head off. It was now nearly 5pm, and they close at 4. With the rush a few things got missed, like the contact numbers should anything go wrong. We thought we would call today and get that sorted. What an optimistic chicken I am.

The central office that all calls are diverted through does not open on a Sunday. Not a real worry for us, except that in getting set up last night we found the company’s credit card that was used to fill our van before we took off in it 😂. I hope they did not need to use it today.

St Andrew's photos follow

Near the University of St Andrew's

I am very thankful that we had changed our mode about driving to Aberdeen for the night, and had booked into St Andrews which was only an hour away. Or would have been if the supplied GPS could find St Andrews. 😱

Postcard Typical Scotsman

After a wrong turn or two we managed to find our campsite. The manager was lovely and let us know where we could go and find some groceries so sustenance could be partaken of after our long long day.

Vitals purchased, we headed back to the van park and got settled.

We headed off for showers, which was also an experience. The shower had one of those buttons you press, like in hand-basins so the water turns off after a time. The water lasted exactly 7 seconds before you had to ouch the button again. The first time it went off I was quite worried it would not go on again, I was very thankful that it did and that the water remained hot.

It was then dinner and bed. The bed was very comfortable and the van was quite warm, so sleep was not far away.

This morning we woke and saw why our park was called Spires View. What a lovely scene.

St Andrew's Port

We headed off the have a quick look around the port area of St Andrews. Today is Raisin Sunday in St Andrews, and a lovely local lady told us of the tradition and how it came about. I am going to leave it to you to google it if interested in the story.

We did see some of the shenanigans including a skinny-dipper and a blind faith walk. Most of it looked like good fun, but we did see the police take away one young lady who appeared to have had a few too many drinks for 9am on a Sunday morning.

The walk around the port area was quite interesting. There were a number of pots on the dock, which we found out were lobster pots.

We found this berry bush that we are relying on Nana to name.

Fun Beach Aberdeen

Check out the wind turbines in the sea

Huge bridge across to Dundee

From there we headed to Dundee, where we were looking for the 3 mobile store to get Andy’s sim topped up so we would have net for the rest of our time here. After doing around, and around, we asked, and another wonderfully lovely lady helped us,out by telling us where the store was. I headed off while Robbie moved the van from loading zone to loading zone this avoiding the parking inspector. A kind young man got the phone all set up for me and I headed back to the van.

Now equipped with google maps, and not the 20 cent satnav supplied, we were off.

Our next stop for the was Aberdeen. So lovely, and vastly different in colours from St Andrews.

We went for a quick walk along the beach road, and then headed off for Portsoy.

The drive was quite lovely. Lots of sheep, green grass, fresh mown hay fields and wind farms.

We were constantly amazed at how close the houses are to the edge of the roads.

We arrived at Portsoy. Set up our van, got the wash on and had a cuppa.

Portsoy Van park Cold and windy

It has been a long couple of days. I know it sounds like a big winge, and last night we were not feeling very thankful, but we are really having the best time, and feeling a little more appreciative of our blessings tonight. Perhaps it is God saying that I should not hire Campervans, or perhaps not organise to collect our van on the first day of the school holidays. 😜

Have a wonderful night lovelies, and we will be back tomorrow with a better attitude to the wonderful experiences we are having.