Aberdeen to Eyemouth, Wrong Road and a Lovely Sunday

Sunday, October 30, 2016 ~ by Amy

Somehow we slept through the early morning wake up calls on the ferry so the first notification we heard was when we docked at 7:30 in Aberdeen, on the east coast of Scotland. We made short work of getting ready and then went down to breakfast. Due to a few tricks I had learned after dinner last night, I was finally able to get a good cup of coffee from their machine. It is one of those big tanks with a variety of selections such as “regular with cream”, “decaf black”, etc. It was so weak as it came out, I could hardly drink it. I discovered that I could let it run about two inches into the cup and then use a second cup to catch the watery remains. Then select the same thing again and run off the extra. Then push the espresso button to top it off. Quite good! As we ate our breakfast we had a nice view of the city of Aberdeen.

Aberdeen, from the harbor

Driving off the ferry, we had cloudy skies, nice wide highways and pretty country scenery as we headed south. Instead of following the coast down, we drove inland and got on the A90 to take a quicker, more direct route.

Late morning I spotted a sign for something touristy looking coming up. I impulsively exited at the village of Brechin. The signs led us to a garden center with an attached cafe and gift shop. Since it was too early to eat lunch, we just drove through the parking lot and went to explore the town. As we drove down a very narrow road at about 10:30, we heard church bells chiming. 

Brechin, Scotland

We came to a stop against a stone wall in front of the Cathedral Kirk at Brechin. I saw that our timing was perfect for the morning service so Alyssa squeezed out of the car and we joined the many people walking through the iron gates into the church.

Cathedral Kirk at Brechin

Not too many people took note of our jeans as we found a place in the middle of the fairly full church. We kept our coats and hats on as the little heaters below each pew did little to take the chill off the air. The service was nice. There was a little liturgy that was easy to follow with the church bulletin. Both familiar and unfamiliar hymns sounded forth from the beautiful pipe organ up front.

Church organ, Brechin, Scotland

Holy communion was served following the main message. The topic, “Our daily bread” was fitting for the occasion. After the final hymn I asked permission from one of the ushers to walk around and take some pictures. He was happy to share some of their church's history. The round tower dated back to about 1100, but the rest of the church had been built and rebuilt through more recent years.

There were a few relics and memorials in the back of the church, including a plaque listing the previous bishops or ministers.

Old clock works

After a little walk through the cemetery, we got back in our car to continue our journey, setting the GPS for the garden center cafe. 

Round tower, Cathedral Kirk at Brech[n.  AD 1100

Cemetery and Cathedral Kirk at Brechin, Scotland

Sometimes GPS can be super helpful and sometimes it gets us in trouble. In this case, it didn't seem to be aware of the fact that the road was a single lane that ended at some poles. It's possible that the people who lived on it didn't even own cars or else they turned around by pulling into their garages. Whatever the case may be, our over-sized Mercedes had no business being on the road.

When I came to the end of the road I attempted to turn around. It didn't take long for me to discover that there simply was no way I could turn around and instead had to back out. Throughout my attempted maneuvers there was a couple of people out walking dogs. They seemed to take no notice of our embarrassing situation. After backing around several corners, I decided to try again to turn around in a narrow garage entrance. It looked easy at first but because of some concrete posts, it became nearly impossible, even with Alyssa outside guiding me.

Finally I was able to wiggle the car out and we were on our way. Before we left the village, we stopped back at the garden center and had a nice lunch at the cafe. Then we set our GPS for Eyemouth, Scotland and headed out.

I was never so happy to see a wide, boring, open highway.  The skies had cleared and we drove through some of the most beautiful countryside.

Reaching Perth, just west of the Firth of Tay, we got on an even bigger highway, the M90, which we would take straight south. The M90 ended on the shore of the Firth of Forth, where we crossed over on the Forth Road Bridge to the outskirts of Edinburgh. 

As we approached the huge city of Edinburgh, Alyssa skillfully navigated us onto the bypass so we would steer clear of the heaviest city traffic.  The UK is very fond of traffic circles.  I'm really thankful that I lived three years near several of them or I would never have been able to handle driving with everything opposite as well as learning to safely and efficiently use roundabouts.  Still, it was unnerving when I encountered roundabouts like this one.  Four lanes across, with a traffic light at the beginning.

By late afternoon we had arrived in the quaint seaside town of Eyemouth, Scotland.