A Fine Day Out!

Drove 30 miles north to visit three small fishing villages in Aberdeenshire.  The forecast was for occasional sunny spells breaking through the cloud cover.  

We visited Gardenstown (known locally as Gamrie!) first.  The clouds remained firmly in place while we wandered round the colourful harbour, there weren’t many visitors today.  Most of the village is built into the hillside that overlooks the sea.  It has several churches, as many fishing communities have and in days gone by these would have been well attended but I doubt that is the case nowadays.

We walked from there round the coastal path to Crovie (known locally as Crivvie!).  There are no roads in Crovie!   Villagers can drive their cars down the hill to a narrow turning point where their messages and other goods are loaded onto barrow which they then push along the narrow path to unload at their cottages.

Most of the cottages are gable end on to the sea and the windows have shutters. As you can see from one of the extras the distance from the water’s edge to their homes is just a few feet.  When the seas are stormy it must be pretty scary.  Not surprisingly most of the cottages are holiday lets and only a few of the homes are occupied all year round.

We walked back along to Gamrie stopping along the way for coffees and cakes.  Once back in the car we drove a few miles along the coast to Pennan (known locally as Pennan ;-).  The road is a rollercoaster ride and is a spectacular drive.

Some of you will know that Pennan rose to fame in the late 1980s as it was the location used to film the village scenes for ‘Local Hero’.  The beach scenes were filmed at Morar and Arisaig  on the west coast, south of the Isle of Skye.  Burt Lancaster played the leading role and the film was a box office success.  In the extras you can see another of the stars in the film, a phone box no less!  If you know, you know!

It was as we drove down the tortuous hill into Pennan that the sun finally. broke through, serendipitously!  We had a fine day out.  The main image is of the promenade on the Main Street in Pennan (it only has one street which is one more than Crovie!). Also there are two extras of the village , three extras of Crovie/Crivvie and two extras of Gardenstown/Gamrie if you‘d like to see more views of the area.