May 8, 2012 - Scotland - Trip to Aberdeen

29th April 2012 (Bed No 26) After breakfast we struck up a conversation with the Scottish receptionist (Mimi), who just happened to be the owner of the hotel and also just happened to be married to an Australian from Melbourne. Before you knew it, we were in deep conversation with her husband Doug. Fifteen minutes later we finally got away. A visit to the Loch Ness Centre & Exhibition revealed the legends, historical and natural wonders of the famous lake. I am now convinced that “Nessie” the Loch Ness Monster never existed, but I still...

Aug 18, 2011 - UK leg completed

From Hull I went via Beverley to Scarborough, a simple enough ride but once again very wet. It's a pleasant resort bisected by a valley. I had some fish and chips before adjourning to The Valley bar, a pub long featured on my website but never before visited. I finished with a long walk over to the cricket ground, home of occasional One Day Internationals, to visit the North Riding Hotel, a renowned real ale bar. Next day I rode to Staithes via Whitby. This day the weather was really bad. The route went along an old railway route, called...

Jul 7, 2011 - Aberdeen

Facebook album - if you are not a Facebook user you can still view the album of photos by clicking/copy pasting on this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150957880725707.759633.746395706&type=1&l=a5443fb827 Thursday – at least it has stopped raining. The racket from the pubs died off around 4am, just before the street cleaners got to work. The WiFi is still off the air, so Tony calls the YHA in Aberdeen. They cannot take a booking over the phone, but they say there will be no problem getting a room. It takes us about 10-15...

May 26, 2010 - Farming and fishing on the east coast

Farming and fishing: just about sums up this entire coast from Fraserburgh down to Dundee. The landscape is not imposing or majestic, but it's green, fertile and quietly lovely. The fishing towns you go through perhaps have seen better days, but now and again you find a gem and catch a glimpse of the role these places have played in our history. There are also loads of fighter planes. Nowhere else in Scotland have we experienced so many fly-bys. Perhaps they heard we were coming. Heading towards Aberdeen was a culture shock as we hit dual...

Aug 22, 2009 - Staging Post

By 8.00 am we had deposited our luggage in a locker after being forced to unpack it beforehand in order to assure the attendant that we were not leaving any explosives in his care. We had decided to spend several hours in Aberdeen before taking the coach back to Edinburgh because a) I wanted to see if I could remember anything about the place from a week spent there on the insistence from my employer of the time that I learn about off shore oil production (something like that anyway but I think I really learnt about good whiskies and that...

Aug 15, 2007 - Aberdeen

We decided to do another day trip from Aberdeen today and stay another nigh before heading for John O'Groats. First we went to Huntly and checked out the castle, Ancestral home of the Gordons, the museum and a shortbread factory, then we went down to Alford and checked out a motoring museum which had some weird and wonderful vehicles of all sorts, We did a couple of laps of a small circuit on a steam driven truck with solid rubber tyres and what felt like no suspension! Finally a drive to Ballater to check out the old railway station where...

Dec 7, 2005 - Aberdeen

On the fourth, I caught the bus to Aberdeen to catch up with Richard and Lei, who I had met on the TopDeck bus trip in July. It was great to see them again and just in the nick of time, because they head back to China in mid-January, after studying in Aberdeen for two years. Aberdeen is known as the Granite City because the majority of the buildings are made out of...surpise...granite! I spent a day exploring this grey expanse and went to the Aberdeen Arts Centre, Marischal College, the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Provost Skene's...

Oct 20, 2005 - On the road again...

Yes, we will soon be strapping on the backpacks and heading off on another adventure quite soon. Can you believe that tjust about twelve months ago kirsty agreed to marry me? What I find more unbelievable is that the medication is still working! So we are off to Paris for a few days of well...spoiling ourselves silly. So thanks again to everyone who came last year and made the day so great. And we hope that some of the injuries sustained are finally resolved as we are soon heading back and want to see everyone whilst we are there. We fly...

Aug 6, 2005 - HighLand Fling

So I eventually landed in Aberdeen Airport, which is the size of my lounge so was not hard to locate Pauline, whom had no idea what time I was arriving and took a guess, and a right one too.... Of course, the drive to Pauline's, the 22nd different place I have stayed since leaving my own bed in Dubai, was not without a liquor break.. Her colleague 'priestly' was already undertaking the said refreshments, so we went to meet him. Of course I was hoping for Jason priestly, but there was 'David'. A very trendy bar indeed, full of finished...

Jun 7, 2005 - Aberdeen

What a day. I felt like a homeless bum living out my car. Sister Henderson needed a lift into town at 10 am since we had a meeting at 2, we decided to drop her off and head into town to de some sightseeing. We found the Aberdeen church building, which was in a shady part of town, and parked our car. We took the bus into town to save on parking and gas. We got to see a couple of museums, the Maritime and Provost Skene House (the oldest in Aberdeen.) The city is entirely made of granite and is beautiful in the sun. It is right on the...

Dec 21, 2004 - ABZ

So we're back safe and sound. Thanks to everybody who bothered to read what we were doing and send us emails and special thanks to those folk that met up with us on the trip. The diary will be online till Christmas Eve, then it will be disappear. Have a Happy Christmas ! Lots of love Steve and Laura xxx

Sep 24, 2004 - The night before

We're less than 12 hours away now. Taxi is booked, case is pretty much packed and I've just loaded the last of the tracks that are coming with us from CD onto Laura's new iPod. As my new mp3 player holds 10 albums it wasn't such a Herculean task to fill it. I should have actually been on the golf course today, it was bloody lovely. Autumn golf aye. Where's Loudy when you need him ? Oh yeah, the other side of the planet. So I made do with going to the gym and listening to Radio 6 while Laura assembled some furniture in her flat. We're on...