From Lanark to Aberdeen

When I say 'all change' this time I mean it!    Helen has a new job in central Glasgow and therefore we've moved to Scotland, and moved again and then again (but that's another story).

Having dropped one car load of stuff in a very small flat, after the 8 hour drive North, we set off on the following day to explore our local area, the first place that caught our eye being New Lanark:

It's a fascinating and quite scary former factory alongside a river, with it's own school, accommodation, etc., and is now a World Heritage Site.   We were doubly lucky both with the weather and fact that the hydro-power station was offline for repairs, meaning the water running down the river was at full power:

New Lanark is definitely a site to revisit and explore further and the walks around and about look good too!

We had also promised to visit a nephew in Aberdeen so meandered our way even further North the following day, popping in to see Glamis Castle on the way:

It's an amazingly grand pile and absolutely not our cup of tea, so we had a walk around their gardens, with obligatory bee friendly bits:

But this kind of stuff is just window dressing when you think of everything else this type of family gets up to.

From Glamis we visited stopped off at Dunnottar Castle just South of Aberdeen:

I'd like to visit agin with blue skies and better light, it's a fascinating ruin.

We also visited the RSPB at Loch Strathbeg:

The Lighthouse Museum at Faserburgh, climbed our first Munro, Mither Tap, the woodland here on the way up:

How much further?

A moody view from the top:

We visited a Gannet colony on the coast (Helen did this one, I couldn't face the very narrow and precipitous cliff path):

 Actual proper cliffs, with barley on them :

And visited Aberdeen itself.   We had a cracking evening of pub, curry and watching some good old fashioned street fighting!   It was really good seeing our Nephew in his own habitat though Aberdeen really does need some town planning to make it easier to get round!