The Bald Journaller
- Jun 11, 2021
- 4 min read

Allowed out ... day 10

Miles today:146

Miles so far: 1627

u-turns: a barely believable 14 - Rob managed to break his own record for fastest, by having to make one in the hotel car park in Inverness and we are certain 14 is a world record in a day, especially as it was light on mileage. Although to be fair I was responsible for the last two, looking for the hotel in Aberdeen!

Ruins: 1, the magnificent Elgin cathedral

Arrival into Aberdeen: just after 6 - so what on earth were we doing all day. Making fools of ourselves in Pennan, but more of that later...

Another fabulous day - they just keep coming and coming, although we haven't got used to being in traffic again. Where did all these people come from?!

A day a little short on mileage but definitely not short on idiocy! The main attraction (at least for me) was a visit to Pennan on the north coast of Aberdeenshire, where they filmed many of the the scenes for the film “Local Hero” - at the hotel, the phone box and I think the harbour where the Russian trawler arrives. Our intention was to reenact Macintyre’s repeated attempts to cross the road from the hotel to the quaint red phone box only to be nearly run over each time by the same moped - in a village of about 20 people! But even we have our limits and it would have just been too dangerous - one of us would have ended up in the sea, or knocking down a pedestrian. And I actually think the locals would have stopped us - they have seen idiot like us before. Anyway, it had been hard enough just to get into the village with the hairpin bends down from the “main” road.

So we have to settle for a video of an imaginary call made from Macintyre to his boss Burt Lancaster in Houston. This has been recorded for posterity, but in the time available I have failed utterly to work out how to upload it to the blog. So I have simply circumvented the problem and will post it directly to Facebook. For those who know the film “Local Hero” my short video will be both idiotic and childish. For those who don't know the film it will just be childish! But it made me giggle.

Anyway, on here I will have to make do with stills...

So back to the u-turns... Rob managed to bring his bike up to the pay barrier on the way out of the car park in Inverness, depsite the fact we didn’t have tickets and didn’t have to pay. ~Funnily enough the barrier failed to rise and that was the first u-turn of the day - a mere 30 seconds after we set off. On the outskirts of Inverness he then led us down a completely unmarked road that rapidly degenerated into a dirt track and that made it 2. But not to be deterred he thought he had found an alternative but missed it and u-turn 3 led to another dead end - and u-turn 4. So we actually managed the first 4 before we had left the boundary of Inverness city; a record even for us. Not sure how me counted the rest, but we initially missed Elgin cathedral, then parked in a dead end (again) and stopped at remarkable viewpoints on the way to Pennan (which shouldn’t count but do!)

Depite our multiple u-turns we still arrived at Fort George for close to our apppointed time - this booking everything is a bit of pain! - especially when the place is big enough to accommodate about 4000 socially distanced visitors. It really is massive - about a mile just to walk round the ramparts! And it still houses 500 soldiers - or was it 5000? Anyway it was built after the Jacobite uprising to deter them from trying again but in the end was never even attacked. Bit like building an pointless aircraft carrier nowadays!

We also stopped for the tallest standing stone in Scotland just outside Forres, presumably encased in glass in case you nick it! And before we knew it we (as usual) had almost half our distance to go in the middle of the afternoon. But Pennan really was worth savouring! We drank coffee, wandered the sea wall and the harbour and took far too many pictures of us, a bike and a telephone box, that to all intensive purposes looks like any other telephone box - but this one does now have a preservation order!

Then a wonderful stop in Elgin to explore the ruined cathedral. I should be ashamed that I can recall little of the history proudly related by Donald the volunteer who would not let us explore until we had heard the the whole story but to be fair to him it actually brought the place alive - then he follwed us round to check up on us and to make sure we had listened. Needless to say I avoided him!

At about half 6 we rolled into Aberdeen and have just treated ourslves to a dinner of world cuisine!! Hard to imagine how they can cook so many different options in the one place but if you stick to the sushi and the tempanyaki it does the job - and for less that 15 quid a head.

We are staying in what seems to be the young and trendy nightspots of Aberdeen - but luckily there seems to be some sort of curfew at 11 so a peaceful night beckons in our Radisson hotel we have bagged for a mere 40 quid. What‘s not to like.

Dunottar castle in Stonehaven is Eric’s must see for tomorrow - which opoprbalyt means we wont be able to find it! Ill let you know tomorrow. Night night, here’s a few pics that didn’t make the cut for the text above:

Some vies of Pennan. The box! With bike of course!