Cycling Dundee to Aberdeen, Scotland: Cheered on by Oor Wullie
25 - 30 June 2019
Dundee to Montrose (25 June 2019, 56 km, 34.8 mi)
It’s time we gave a shout-out to Orr Wullie. He’s been showing up in Scottish cities along our trail since mid-June, sitting on his bucket and laughing like he thinks we’re nuts for carrying all this stuff on our bikes. The statues are there to raise awareness and funding for Scotland’s children’s hospital charities, and each one is painted to illustrate a different theme. Thanks for cheering us along, Wullie!
This Orr Wullie is painted with sea creatures, to celebrate the biodiversity of the waters at the mouth of the River Tay. Wullie thinks it’s funny that people would load up bikes and cycle across Scotland. Dundee, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
We left Dundee by heading east, toward the mouth of the River Tay. After stopping for a quick visit with Wullie, we passed Broughty Castle, a fort that was built to guard the entrance to the river.
Broughty Castle. Dundee, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Just past the castle, we turned northeast along the coast - and directly into a 15-20 mph headwind. Luckily, we were able to find places along the way where we could stop for short breaks, and get out of the wind. One of those places was a nice, little park in East Haven, lovingly planted with a variety of flowers. The centerpiece of the park was a boat, set in the ground to look like it was motoring through the grass. A golden bicycle laden with flowers proclaimed East Haven as a finalist in the 2018 Britain in Bloom contest. Way to go, East Haven.
Today we passed 5,000 km (3,100 km), just as we were entering the town of Arbroath. Milestones like that are great for stopping to take a moment and celebrate.
Just past Arbroath, we turned inland and cycled over two low ridges covered with expansive fields of wheat and hay. The wheat is still mostly green, but it’s starting to get a golden sheen. We were mesmerized by watching the wheat waving in the wind. It was tough to capture the effect in a photo, but if you imagine rippling water in a sea of green and gold, you will have some idea of what it was like.
The season’s first hay crop is being harvested now, and we’re starting to see lots of hay bales laying out in fields to dry, or neatly wrapped and stacked.
Mr. and Mrs. Haybale were out along the trail today. Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Our destination, Montrose, sits on the River South Esk, next to a large tidal basin. In the afternoon, we walked over to the basin to check it out. The tide was low, so there was a lot of exposed mud, cut through by shallow drainage channels. There were tons of birds that I wished I could identify, but they were too far away and I hadn’t brought along my binoculars. So I had to settle for just enjoying the scenery.
A sculpture near the tidal basin in Montrose, Scotland, UK. The basin is important habitat for ducks, geese, swans, and other birds that like water. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Heading eastward along the River South Esk, we encountered an unusual memorial. Bamse was a St. Bernard who served as a crew member on a Norwegian navy ship that had escaped the fall of Norway during WWII, and operated as part of the resistance from a base in Montrose. His heroism included rescuing two sailors from death, and helping to break up fights between crew members. In battle, he would stand at the front of the ship, raising the morale of the men. He even learned to ride the bus, to go round up crew members in town for duty. He wore a bus pass around his neck, and would ride into town unaccompanied. All these things earned him the admiration and love of the Norwegian navy and Scottish townspeople, who awarded him several high honors, and made him the official navy mascot. He must have been quite a character.
Bamse, the heroic Norwegian Navy St. Bernard. Montrose, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Montrose to Stonehaven (26 June 2019, 46.6 km, 29 mi)
Heading north from Montrose, the scenery was pretty similar to the past few days. We cycled across open fields, dotted with occasional woodlots.
Heading north from Montrose, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
These bridges across the River North Esk look like they’d run right into each other. Montrose, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
At 9 km we came upon the St. Cyrus National Nature Reserve, managed by Scottish Natural Heritage. They have a small visitors center with displays about how the sandy, coastal habitats change constantly. Not long ago, the channel of the River North Esk changed completely during a major storm, moving about half a kilometer to the south. The lifeboat station that formerly sat at the mouth of the river became stranded inland, and now serves as the nature reserve’s visitors center.
This former lifeboat station house was left high and dry when the River South Esk changed course during a major storm. It’s now the visitor’s center for the St. Cyrus National Nature Reserve. Montrose, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
We stopped at the nature reserve, and walked out to the beach on a trail across the dunes. Beach grasses were growing thick on the dunes, and the habitat looked nice and healthy. Just to the west, the dunes were bordered by a picturesque limestone cliff. You can guess where our trail would lead us next…
The dunes at St. Cyrus National Nature Reserve. Montrose. Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Right after passing the visitors center, the bike trail launched onto a steep climb away from the beaches and up onto the ridge overlooking the ocean. For most of the rest of the ride, we were on higher ground, with views eastward toward the sea.
Just before reaching Stonehaven, we came to Dunnottar Castle, a ruined fortress out on a rocky outcrop, reached by a steep, narrow pathway from the mainland. When it was intact, Dunnottar was Scotland’s most fortified castle. It has a storied history. It’s most famous for being the place where Scotland hid the Crown Jewels and regalia from Oliver Cromwell’s army during the English Civil Wars of the 1600s. When Cromwell besieged the castle in 1651, the men guarding the jewels resisted surrender for eight months. During that time, they managed to smuggle out the jewels. When the garrison finally surrendered, the jewels were gone. Livid, Cromwell imprisoned the castle’s governor, and confiscated almost everything else of value on the premises.
The ride from Dunnottar into Stonehaven goes down a big hill, along the cliff face, until it finally reaches sea level. On the way down, we had a bird’s eye view of the town’s harbor. The tide was still low enough that most of the boats were stuck in the harbor, sitting precariously in the mud. Nobody’s going boating right now.
Stonehaven, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
In the evening, we went for a walk around town. From the waterfront promenade, we watched a large group of sailboats out practicing their maneuvers in the bay.
A boating club, out for an evening sail. Some of the boats looked like they were racing each other, seeing who could go across the bay the fastest. Stonehaven, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
We headed south along the ocean walk to Stonehaven Harbor. Boats started streaming out of the harbor starting at around 7:00 in the evening. Apparently the tide level had gotten high enough to get boats out of the harbor without getting stuck in the mud. Even a group of paddle boarders headed out for what looked like a sunset tour.
The buildings around the harbor make up the Auld Toon, the oldest section of town. We wandered through some of the alleyways, before heading back to our hotel for the night.
A barometer mounted on this tower in Stonehaven’s Auld Toon helped sailors discover whether the weather was likely to get worse or better. That seems like pretty useful info if you’re going to be heading out to sea. Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Stonehaven to Aberdeen (27 June 2019, 42.7 km, 26.5 mi)
We’re definitely seeing a pattern, here. The towns are right on the coast, at sea level. But between the towns, the cycling trail climbs up onto the top of the bluffs that surround the towns and border the coast. And the trail never winds slowly up the escarpment. No, it always shoots straight up the cliff. Stonehaven fit the pattern. Not long after leaving town, we pounded our way up a steep hill into Cookney. Luckily, there was a nice, shaded park with benches at the top, where we could catch our breath before heading out on the long, slow, descent into Aberdeen.
A shaded, little park where we stopped to catch our breath. Cookney, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
After 20 km, we hit the urban fringe of Aberdeen, leaving the agricultural fields behind. Sometimes it feels like everything in Scotland is under construction. It’s as if they want to take advantage of the short summer season to get a year’s worth of project work done.
Even though the driver of this excavator waved us through, it still felt a little bit risky to ride under it. We hustled through, with PedalingGuy performing a balancing act to get this photo with a one-handed shot. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
We approached Aberdeen by circling along the southern side of the harbor on the River Dee. It’s a huge, working port with multiple channels bordered by commercial docks. The biggest industries here provide support services for oil rigs. And we saw lots of specialized ships decked out with cranes, winches, and helipads for delivering cargo and crews to the oil platforms out in the North Sea.
Ships in the harbor. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Part of the bicycle route was closed because of construction work related to a major refurbishment of the port. The new route is shorter, but heads up a very busy road (St. Fittick’s Road) for about a kilometer. We decided to ride on the sidewalk through that stretch, because there really wasn’t room for bikes on the road.
Oor Wullie was there to greet us when we crossed the River Dee into Aberdeen. This time he’s painted the color of granite, reflecting Aberdeen’s nickname as the Granite City. Thanks again, Wullie, for being there at both the start and end of this leg of our trip.
Granite Wullie welcomes us to Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
When we checked into the hotel, we got a room on the back side, to avoid road noise. Little did we know that there was a colony of nesting seagulls on the roofs behind the hotel. As nature lovers, we should have been pleased. But there was a big caveat. The seagulls shrieked and called almost constantly, and we could hear them loud and clear in our room. It was a sound that would become increasingly annoying over the coming days.
Layover in Aberdeen (28-30 June 2019)
Three days in Aberdeen allowed us to see some of the city’s iconic sights. We walked out to the the north side of the city to see the Zoology Museum at the University of Aberdeen. Next door, we wandered through the Cruikshank Botanic Garden. It was bursting with flowers in bloom - a very peaceful place for a stroll.
Zoology Museum at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Just up the road from the botanic garden is the St. Machar Cathedral. It’s very different from the English cathedrals we visited. Dating from the 13th century, it’s built from large granite bricks, with brick columns holding up the interior arches. A unique feature is the wood-paneled ceiling, which is decorated with the coats of arms of European monarchs, leaders of the church, and scottish royalty.
St. Machado Cathedral. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
We walked back to the city along High Street, an atmospheric road lined with historic buildings, including the impressive King’s College Chapel.
The iconic crown tower on the Kings College Chapel is the symbol of the University of Aberdeen. Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Another day, we wandered down to the waterfront to check out the harbor and visit the historic village of Footdee.
On the way to the harbor, we passed a statue of Sir William Wallace, hero of Scotland’s struggle for independence. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
The waterfront is a working, industrial port. So it was not always easy to see the ships, and there weren’t any signs to help us figure out what the various vessels were for. Even PedalingGuy, who usually likes a waterfront walk, complained that there wasn’t much to see. But we did get a few interesting glimpses of big oil rig supply ships, and the enormous North Star Ferry which connects Aberdeen to the Orkney and Shetland Islands.
At the mouth of the river, things got more interesting. Two structures provided a remarkable contrast between the old and the new. There’s an old “roundhouse” that served as the Harbor Master’s Station. For 208 years this quaint, modest-sized building controlled all the boat traffic coming in and out of the port. In 2006 it was replaced with a giant, modern, glass-encircled building, now called the Aberdeen Shipping and Control Centre. The buildings are so different from each other, it’s amazing to think that they perform the same functions. Modern technology in the new building probably makes the running of the port safer and more efficient, but it certainly didn’t reduce the space required to get the job done.
Just behind the Shipping and Control Center, also at the mouth of the River Dee, lies the quaint, historic fishing village of Footdee. It was built in the early 1800s as a place to provide safe, affordable housing for Aberdeen’s poor fishermen. The whole community is comprised of only 80 homes. Many of the houses are tiny, more like two-room cabins. And each one has a separate storage shack for keeping belongings that don’t fit in the house.
As fishing dwindled as an occupation, more people started moving in simply to take advantage of the relatively well-built, but cheap houses. These days, Footdee is more of an artist’s community. The houses were once all exactly alike. But over time, individual eccentricities have been expressed through added colors, door and window trimmings, and an abundance of signs hung on homes that express the owner’s views. It’s a fascinating place to wander around, and imagine what life might be like in this densely-packed neighborhood of independent thinkers.
An alley in Footdee village. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Ready for a break, we bought drinks from a food truck and relaxed at the tables along the waterfront. Dolphins played in the water out near the point of the harbor jetty. And out at sea, we saw a group of big ships anchored. Maybe they were waiting for permission to enter the harbor? The view was particularly interesting because the ships were parked close to an offshore wind farm.
View out to sea. Footdee, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
Back in the city, we visited the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, where we learned about how oil drilling platforms work, what it’s like to dive underwater to fix the platform, and all sorts of other stuff about the history of the Aberdeen port.
Street art near the Maritime Museum. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
By now, the seagulls carrying on outside our hotel have become a huge nuisance. Their constant calling is really loud, and starting to wear on us. We’ll be glad to leave them behind.
Seagulls are okay, but they make for noisy neighbors. Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Copyright © 2018-2019 Pedals and Puffins.
