Aberdeen; Saturday, 21 January, 2012

Up early and down to the station to get the train north out of Aberdeen to Elgin.

It was quite a long walk into the centre of town, past the Walkers shortbread factory, and by the time I got into the centre the weather was starting to get a little unpleasant.

I had a quick wander up the massive Motte of the former castle, of which only a small fragment of the base of the keep remains, to take in the views, which were impressive, if slightly difficult to make out through the almost horizontal rain that was starting to come down.

Having sheltered in a bus stop for a few minutes the shower passed and I continued on into town and out to the ruins of the old Cathedral. In the time it took to look around the ruins the weather went from calm to storm with torrential downpour to gloriously sunny and the back to calm again.

Having avoided the worst of the weather, and taken in the sights I wandered back down to the station. The original plan was to catch the train on one more stop to Forres and visit the historic distillery on the outskirts of the town, but as it was a mile and half walk I was a little dubious and not long before we reached the station there was another massive downpour which made my mind up that I would take advantage of having purchased a ticket all the way through to Inverness I would stay on the nice warm, dry, train and take in the stunning views.

I arrived in Inverness and went for a short wander around the town centre, but of course it being that bit further north sunset was even earlier than in Aberdeen so it wasn’t that long before I headed back to the station to make the long journey back south to Aberdeen.

Arriving back in Aberdeen I had a pleasant dinner before heading back to the hotel.