🇬🇧 Crail, St Andrews & the Coos

Crail

Our first day trip from East Wemyss was to a small village called Crail.  We wanted to see what the seaside was like around this area and we had read that this was a cute village.   It had a lovely historical harbour and we enjoyed our short walk (as Kim’s knee was not up to too much yet).

 

St Andrews

After a day’s rest, Kim’s knee seemed a bit better so we took a day trip to St Andrews.  We were interested in visiting it as it seemed like a beautiful town, but many people come here as it is the home of golf – where the game was first started.  Here in Scotland we have noticed a plethora of golf courses.   We found a free park outside the town by the water which was a pretty introduction to the town.

We loved exploring the vintage shops and bookshops in the town and even spotted an unusual sculpture of a cat chasing a mouse on the roof!

The ruined St Andrews Abbey was pretty spectacular as it was set at the end of the town overlooking the water.

We looked at the castle ruins, also photogenically overlooking the water, before we stumbled upon a cute gelato shop which we had to try (and a burger place!)

We then headed off after seeing the golf course that started it all!

 

Heading to Aberlour

After packing up we began our drive to Aberlour (about 3.5 hours) which took us through the Cairngorm mountains.  It was a windy, rainy day and we enjoyed spotting the last of the rapeseed fields – a sight we had seen earlier in Sweden in full bloom.

It was then that the landscape changed as we entered the mountains – lots of twisty, turns roads through spectacular landscapes.  We even stopped off at a closed ski centre – it was very cold there – and we later heard they had their first snow there that night!

Rob had to be particularly careful on some stretches as there were sheep wandering next to and, at times, on to the road!

 

The Coos

A short while out of Aberlour, Kim spotted something on the side of the road so we pulled over.   Coos!  We had previously seen the highland coos (Scottish for cow) outside Edinburgh but this was two mums and their babies.  We hopped out of the car and took a few photos.

And that would have been that – we got a few photos – we stayed for about 20 minutes – the cows ignored us and mostly ate – so we started to head to the car … and then the two young ones walked over.   Soon the whole family came over – the babies were so close we could touch them.   Such an amazing experience and a true highlight of the trip for us!