{"id":340,"date":"2024-11-14T21:34:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T21:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2025-02-07T01:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T01:43:15","slug":"gamrie-excursion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/2024\/11\/14\/gamrie-excursion\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamrie excursion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This excursion was great fun and the august representatives of the heritage group were blessed with fine weather as we travelled about the countryside merrily in a convoy of three cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>We wound our way towards Banff on the backways, going past such oddities as a Japanese garden and &#8220;Aladdin&#8217;s Cave&#8221; &#8211; a vehicle graveyard!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>First stop was Gardenstown, known locally as Gamrie &#8211; the drive down to the sea was steep and like many places along the northeast coast, there was a cute little harbour at the end of the road.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We moved along the coast to Pennan, where the village scenes of Bill Forsyth&#8217;s film <em>Local Hero<\/em> were shot. This time the road down was ridiculously steep! I got my obligatory shot with the phone box and we had a nice drift along the seafront. Troup Head is a RSPB reserve and Cullykhan used to be an <a href=\"https:\/\/portal.historicenvironment.scot\/apex\/f?p=1505:300:::::VIEWTYPE,VIEWREF:designation,SM11037\">Iron age fort<\/a>, so I&#8217;ll be heading back to both of them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We then went to Aberdour beach, which was gorgeous. Unlike Pennan, it was in the sunshine and it was warm &#8211; 15c!? Not bad for November in Scotland. The sea was as flat as a pancake.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Spirits high, we stopped at <a href=\"https:\/\/canmore.org.uk\/site\/19961\/aberdour-saint-drostans-church\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/canmore.org.uk\/site\/19961\/aberdour-saint-drostans-church\">St Drostans Kirk<\/a> which we had passed on the way down to the beach. Said to have been founded in 590AD, I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if there things going before wee Drostan rocked up.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We lunched at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davronhotel.co.uk\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.davronhotel.co.uk\/\">Davron Hotel<\/a> in Rosehearty, which was doing good business. That&#8217;s nice to see since there aren&#8217;t many places open for food round those parts in the week.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tummies full, we went up the hill to the astounding ruins of Pitsligo Castle. Wow this is a heck of a ruin! It&#8217;s crumbling away, despite investment in renovations in the 1990s by &#8230;. Malcolm Forbes &#8230; yes of Forbes Magazine!? <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Malcolm_Forbes\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Malcolm_Forbes\">Wikipedia says<\/a>: &#8220;He was known as an avid promoter of\u00a0capitalism\u00a0and\u00a0free market economics\u00a0and for an extravagant lifestyle, spending on parties, travel, and his collection of homes, yachts, aircraft, art, motorcycles, and\u00a0Faberg\u00e9 eggs.&#8221; He died in 1990 and perhaps that put paid to the plans. In any case, the castle is not in good nick nowadays.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Having said that, it&#8217;s doing better than another castle of the knuckle, Pitullie, which crumbles away nearby as a ruin in the middle of a field.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Next we went to the old kirk. Since the visit to Fordyce kirk, I have a new respect for graveyards round here and once again the skull and crossbones symbols were in evidence. I didn&#8217;t realise at the time but <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alexander_Forbes,_4th_Lord_Forbes_of_Pitsligo\">Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Forbes of Pitsligo<\/a> is buried in the crypt.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Next to the auld kirk is the new kirk, with fancy stones. Also there&#8217;s the old manse and the new manse, both derelict.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The end of the adventure came when we headed towards a tower which dominated the local landscape, until we got closer and it didn&#8217;t get any bigger &#8230;. turns out it&#8217;s a doocot! At Mounthooly!!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Annd then there was cake.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This excursion was great fun and the august representatives of the heritage group were blessed with fine weather as we travelled about the countryside merrily in a convoy of three cars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[115,121,123,114,130,124,117,128,129,122,120],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excursion","tag-aladdins-cave","tag-davron-hotel","tag-forbes","tag-gamrie","tag-knuckle","tag-mounthooly","tag-pennan","tag-pitsligo","tag-pittulie","tag-rosehearty","tag-st-drostans-kirk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mujinga.net\/berryblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}