The Low Road and the High Road (Scotland)

Phil and Dave at St Andrews Golf Club

The Gates at Balmoral

We bade a fond farewell to Edinburgh after our busy 2 days there. It is another place we are glad we visited and would like to visit again one day.  Proceeded across the Forth Bridge over the Firth of the Forth and made our way through County Fife to St Andrews. We stopped there for morning tea and browsed in a couple of the shops. After this we headed to the Royal and Ancient and Links golf courses to take more photos of us pretending to belong in places. Saw the university where Prince William and Catherine met (William graduated in 2005).

We crossed the Firth of Tay into Dundee. From there, we wound our way through the lowlands stopping for lunch at a little bakery in the small village of Coupar Angus.  It was a very cheap lunch indeed.

Set off again this time up into the hills passing through snow country (luckily no snow at the moment) to Braemar, home of the Highland Games.  The Scottish countryside is really lovely – parts of it pretty and green and parts of it (the highlands) stark and majestic.

Journeyed on to Balmoral to continue our stalking of the Royal Family as the Queen is currently in residence there. Could see the castle from the road but there are signs forbidding you from stopping to take photos, so no photo of Balmoral Castle for us. There is a parking area near the gates so we took photos of us standing at the gates. There is also a gift shop. Had a chat to a nice policeman on duty at the gates. He usually works at Buckingham Palace and he was commenting on how nice the weather is this time of year. He was previously there in January with Prince Charles and it was -14. While we were there a number of cars went in through the gates but we couldn’t make out if it was anyone Royal.  Saw the church where the Royals go at Christmas at Crathie.

Our next stop was Aberdeen where we are staying for the night. We managed to in to the hotel before 5.30pm. Our last 2 nights we have been quite late in arriving at our destination so it is nice to have a little time up our sleeve.

Off to Nairn tomorrow through whisky distillery country