Sitting around in my apartment on a weekend is something that I do not like to do. I want to take advantage of the time that I have here. Scotland is extremely beautiful and there are numerous castles and nature landscapes that I would love to visit. As I have been noticing, traveling to mainland Europe from Aberdeen is quite difficult and expensive. I think that I will now try to travel in and around the UK as much as I can. There are many places to visit that will keep me busy on weekends.
On Saturday, my friend from Wisconsin and I decided to go to Slains Castle and Newburgh Seal beach. We had researched the bus route to get to these locations and luckily, the same bus number (63) drove to both of these places. Even better, we only had to walk to a local bus stop (about 10 minutes away) rather than the 40 minute walk to the downtown bus station. We purchased a student day ticket for the bus which only costed us £6.60. It took about 45 minutes to get from Aberdeen to Cruden Bay, where Slains Castle is located.
We exited the bus and took a muddy path through a forest in order to get to the castle. In about 15 minutes, we reached a beautiful landscape with cliffs and the sea. Slain's Castle was also in view. Slains Castle is actually castle ruins. This castle was previously occupied by the Earl of Erroll and was built around 1597. Following the occupation of several other Earls of Erroll, the 18th Earl of Erroll had Slains rebuilt in 1836. In 1895, it is rumored that Dracula's Bram Stoker stayed in the castle and used the castle as inspiration for his famous novel. In 1913, the 20th Earl sold Slains and was later purchased by the owner of a shipping company. To avoid taxes, the roof was removed in 1925 and the building has been falling apart ever since.
We were the only ones at Slains Castle. It is kind of creepy that you can just walk around the ruins of this old castle. The castle sits on the cliffs of the North Sea. Large open spaces in the castle allow visitors to see and here the crashing waves from far below. Slains is truly one of the coolest places I have ever visited. Not only is the scenery beautiful, but the eeriness of this abandoned masterpiece is quite intriguing.
After leaving Slains, we made our way by bus to Newburgh Seal beach which is a nature preserve in Northern Scotland- only 20 minutes from Aberdeen. Following a sand path from the the little town, we arrived at the beach. About 200 or so seals were laying on the sand across the Ythan River. They are a bit difficult to sea but you can surely hear them. I guess this is good that they are separated from the public. They can enjoy their natural habitat. Some of the seals were swimming in the river and would get quite close to us standing on the other side of the shore. You would see their heads pop up and they would dive back down. This was so exciting to watch. I wish I could have gotten closer to the seals but this experience was rewarding enough.
We headed back to Aberdeen and were home by 1:00. I love doing adventurous things like this, that do not take much time or cost too much. I hope to do more of these weekend trips throughout the semester. That evening, we also booked a trip to London! As both of us are Harry Potter nerds, we booked a trip to the Warner Brothers Studio to see where parts of the movies were filmed. The tour also takes us to Oxford where even more parts were filmed. Stay tuned for my post about my travels in London. I am super excited for this next adventure!
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