A Great Scottish Adventure - Part 1

The epic views from the top of Cairn o'Mount, on the old military road (B974) in Aberdeenshire.

I promised in my last blog update to post a more regular update during my forthcoming Scotland adventure; and here is the promised first instalment! We arrived in Scotland on Friday and have spent the last five days exploring Angus, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire; from our excellent base near Glen Clova in the Cairngorm National Park.

I have written much more lengthy daily breakdowns of our trip for my own enjoyment - what follows is more of an overview of our explorations - highlights and recommendations for fellow travellers and photographers.

Literary History

Our base in Glen Clova isn't very far from the small town of Kirriemuir, birthplace of the playwright J.M. Barrie. We enjoyed a day exploring the town to settle ourselves into the region and enjoyed exploring at a relaxed pace. It was interesting to see the area that Barrie grew up and remained incredibly fond of, as well as to visit his grave up on the hill overlooking the town. The town is relatively quiet but quaint and worth a visit if you are in the area.

Castles, History and Royalty

Aberdeenshire has an abundance of Castles; I'm sure we could have spent our entire time here just filling our days visiting them. Wanting to ensure plenty of variety, we have limited ourselves (so far) to just four. Crathes Castle has to be our joint favourite of the four, with it's extensive woodland grounds ripe for exploration (perfect for the four legged friend in your life) and an interesting castle to visit for any history buff. We also enjoyed a visit to Craigievar Castle, the famous 'pink castle' which looks like something out of a Disney film. Another visit to Braemar Castle, a very interesting spot surrounded by mountains and forests. We also visited Balmoral Castle, although we felt this was the most underwhelming of locations to visit and in terms of 'value for money', it leaves something to be desired! Photographically, all of the Castles offer something to gain - I think Craigievar probably wins from this perspective - as the pink hue certainly stands out from the surrounding landscape.

Lochs, Rivers and Forests 

We are of course in Scotland, so visits to Lochs, Rivers and Forests are going to feature fairly heavily in our explorations.

So far, we've enjoyed visits to three Lochs; each offering something slightly different and enjoyable. The Loch of Lintrathen is the site of the Dundee Waterworks Resevoir, constructed in 1875. The beautiful location makes for a fantastic morning photography spot, especially with the fantastic coffee and cake on offer at The Wandering Bear Cafe.

Loch Tummel is a vast Loch further north in Perthshire; we stopped at the Queen's View visitor centre which is an excellent base to set off on a woodland walk but also to enjoy one of the best easy to access loch views we have visited. The view is said to be Queen Victoria's favourites and we could certainly see why. With picnic spots, woodland walks and epic views - we would certainly recommend a visit.

Loch of Kinnordy offers something completely different to the other two Lochs - with it being a RSPB site with 3 separate hides set-up for wildlife (mostly birds, obviously) photography. I am by no means a wildlife photographer, but I still enjoyed the visit and exploring what the site had to offer.

Alongside these fantastic Lochs, we've also enjoyed visiting some visits to two waterfalls in the woods.

The Hermitage is famous and often featured as one of the best places to visit in the region, I can see why. It's an incredibly accessible route from the car-park to the falls through the riverside woodland - with plenty of photography opportunities along the way. Of course, the main attraction is the falls themselves - with at two different compositions to play with; one is a view from the top of the bridge, the other from the viewing point at Ossian's hall. I enjoyed taking the tripod and filters on this walk to get what I think are some great pictures. Being so accessible, The Hermitage can get fairly busy - even this early in the season, there was a steady stream of photographers and tourists waiting to get their photos.

Reekie Linn Waterfall is a lesser known falls, a few miles down the road from Lintrathen. The walk here is a little more challenging (Mrs B enjoyed reading her book sat at a bench by the riverside car park). In my view, the walk is certainly worth it and you're not competing with other photographers and tourists for space!

Onto the Coast

Of course, I couldn't forget my Coastline Photography project! Scotland has much (so much) to offer for the project. So far, it's been just a very quick taste in and around Aberdeen of what is sure to be very quickly and substantially improved!

Aberdeen Beach is somewhat unusual in it's surroundings; being next to a large retail park (unusual), an amusement park (normal) and a port (unsurprising). The beach offers pleasant views over the North Sea. We would recommend walking along the promenade south to the small fishing 'village' of Footdee (Fittie), which is definitely the highlight of the stretch. This small area has quaint cottages; each with it's own decorated outhouse. Colourful, fun and interesting - it's not my usual photography style - but the visit was definitely a highlight of our day.

Cove Bay Harbour is a small hidden gem along the coast from Aberdeen itself; parking is very limited - so you'll most likely need to walk from the village itself; be prepared for a steep climb back up! The views on offer from this spot were great for photography - although I didn't take the tripod or filters, which would have made for some perfect sweeping landscape compositions featuring the dramatic cliffs!

We've really enjoyed our trip so far - the weather has been mixed; but mostly reasonable. We've got one more day here before we head onto our next leg.

Keep following along to keep track of our journey.

Kenny