A Day in the Shire

Caryn, Safina and I rented a car and spent a day out of Aberdeen in the Shire and it was tons of fun. The weather shaped up to be a perfect Scottish day, we enjoyed gray clouds, rain, wind, gale force winds, and sun (but this did not come out until we were headed back to Aberdeen). We started the day with a 10 min walk up a hill called Mil Maud, which is just about 10 min out of Aberdeen. The walk up the hill was very nice through some woods and then at the top it was covered in heather and we spent a few minutes lying in the heather which was actually very comfortable. After this we drove over to another hill called Pressendye which was much bigger, it was about 45 min hike up. I really struggled to get up this hill but at the top someone has built a wind shelter out of stones and we sat in the shelter and ate our lunch of scones with jam and clotted cream, cheese, strawberries and Sangria. While eating lunch gale force winds came up and walking out of the shelter was a bit dangerous, we got knocked over as soon as we stepped out but, we did have lots of fun taking pictures laying on the wind. Next we drove over to Balmoral Castle. We stopped about 50 times along the way taking pictures of the beautiful country side. The castle was a bit disappointing, you only get to go into the small ballroom, but the grounds were very beautiful. There was a little green house in one of the gardens and walking in it you were encompassed in the greatest smell of tons of flowers! Overall the day was wonderful and we got to see a lot in one day.

~Meagan