Clifftops and Raindrops

Wednesday started out as another gorgeous day, and thankfully the wind had died down so it wasn't nearly as cold out. So Amie and I decided to take a bus up to the Bullers of Buchan and take the clifftop walk down to Slain's Castle and then on to Cruden Bay. I have been to all these places previously, but Amie never had, and I'd never done the cliffside walk, so we decided it would be fun. The Bullers of Buchan were as spectacular as ever, with the water crashing in the cave and the birds nesting on the cliffs. Check out this first picture - that little speck on top of the arch is me, standing on the opposite side of the sea bowl from the main part of the cliffs!

When we started walking the cliffs, the weather was so warm that I took off my fleece and had on just short sleeves! The grass and weeds was as tall as my head in certain places, and the cliffside path was usually only wide enough for one foot. It was a precarious walk at times, and we felt like we were in the jungle, but the seaside views were phenomenal and we saw a lot of wildlife and plants (including thistle and heather) as well.

As we walked towards the castle, we could see rain in the distance. It didn't take long for the rain to make its way to us, and with it the wind picked up and the temperatures dropped so much that I ended up putting on my fleece, jacket, and gloves! We continued to walk though - we had no choice, since we were on the cliffs in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't our only difficulty on this walk. In one of the really narrow sections of the path, I stepped right into a rabbit hole, and sprained my right ankle. It hurt really bad, but again, we had no choice but to continue on. Thankfully we were more than halfway to the castle at that point. Between my hurting ankle, the rain, and the cold, I was a bit miserable.

When we got to Slain's Castle, we finally were able to sit down, and I quickly took ibuprofin to try to ease the pain and swelling in my ankle. We relaxed for a little while, had a little snack, and then I felt up to venturing around the castle. Amie had never been there, so she was seeing it through fresh eyes, and kept saying "I want to live here." Well, it would be really cold, because there's no roof and grass and weeds growing out of the tops of some of the walls! But the castle IS really cool - that's for sure - and we had fun seeing all the many rooms and the cliffs on which it is built.

We finally left the castle to walk/limp our way the rest of the way to Cruden Bay to catch the bus. Well, frustration #3 - we got to the bus stop ontime, but the bus was early, and we saw it pass by as we were getting to the top of the hill. There was no way I could run to catch it, and I honestly don't think we could have caught it even if my ankle wasn't hurt. Since we had an hour to waste until the next bus, we wandered down to the harbour and beach in Cruden Bay, before heading back to the bus stop in plenty of time for the next bus, in case it too was early.

Overall it was an interesting day - frustrating at times, and painful certainly, but we had fun nonetheless.