Where are we going now…
We have two must plays and looking for a third round of golf with Kingston as a base. A castle, museum and a couple of villages. Open to ideas. We plan to review this with Chris over Christmas for input.
One last breakfast before a test drive to the airport for me to drop off Chuck and Kelley. One more round trip and I could turn the driving over to someone else on the wrong side of the road.
Travel always has some sort of stress and we started with a Hurricane, saw beautiful places, laughed with friends and were glad to get back to the island.
All good!
A wonderful breakfast buffet with anything you could imagine to start off our drive to Edinburgh. We had time to checkin at the Sheraton and make our scheduled tour at the castle. The castle entertains 8,000 visitors a day all year. Great views of the city from the walls of the estate. We had appetizers at the club and our final dinner in the lounge.
We finally found the accommodations which we were accustomed – ahhhh. The morning started with drizzle but cleared with the wind picking up to 25mph. There was a chill in the air on the driving range on top of the hill overlooking the course and ocean. A neat course and lunch at the club over looking the grounds with St. Andrews in the back ground.
Rinsed off and headed into town to watch part of the tournament on the Old Course, bling and hamburgers for all at the Brew Dog on Main Street. We bairly made the tour of the original church grounds and found a burial site of the The Bruce family.
An Old Tom Morris nature special and a very reasonable price to play.
The Kilmarnock Inn did have a great breakfast as they were trying to dry Chuck and Kelley’s clothes as their luggage was flying back and forth from Edinburgh and London for some unknown reason. We packed up and headed to Trump Aberdeen for one of the best golf courses in the country. The best, according to The Donald.
A 7000 yard course with another 1000 yards getting from green to tee box on the path below. Interesting design with nice views overlooking the ocean. Binoculars would have been for me to see where we were hitting and the helicopters heading into the North Sea.
Lunch at the club, artifacts for friends and on to St Andrews.
We packed up at the Arms and headed to check in at Cullen Golf Club prior to driving to Cruden. At 10 past 8 as they told us, the club was closed and no one was at the desk, so we found a few carts and tee’d off into the cliffs. Another great course with fabulous views. We had a stop at Pennan on the Aberdeenshire coast where “Local Hero” was filmed then continued on to the Country Park Inn in Peterhead for lunch and on to Cruden Bay.
After settling on the rooms and propping the windows open, we took a walk to the coast, checked out the course and headed down to the local pub where we were the only guest where Leah entertained us with life in Cruden Bay. She had just turned 18 and was able to move form the kitchen to the bar. Back to the Kilmarnock for dinner, no luggage delivered and had to leave the windows open to try to stay cool. Although the best price, there were some good reasons to upgrade rooms for our next visit.
Cullen was a quiet little village. Chuck could not find a light on in town at sunset. Morning omelets at the Seafield Arms by nurse ratchet. She would not serve us coffee at the table until all guest were present. Nice rooms, good food with a local pub like feel then we were on to our club..
Everyone was excited to arrive at Spey Bay. It was exciting to see our names on the board as “Founding Members” and to walk out on the course. Bert and Louie were helpful before arrival and glad to see us. We enjoyed a tough round on the links course with beautiful views of the ocean. Moguls from the ski slope came to mind as we navigated the links. Clearly the mass removal of the brush last fall saved us a dozen balls. We still managed to deposit several balls from the US, had a great lunch, picked up some bling and headed to check out the Cullen Club.
After the traditional Scottish breakfast at the Inn, we headed to Tesco, or a Target, to buy clothes for everyone in the rain. We drove on 90 minutes to Fort William to buy foul weather gear and try the Cod and Haddock at Fishy Fish for lunch. Continued the drive thru the Highlands found a distillery to stop at for a few minutes. It was easy as they were every few miles. A long drive of about 5 hours on narrow roads with more traffic than expected.
We boarded an IcelandAir flight to be surprised at the quality of the snacks only to be wowed with smoked salmon and sliced beef for lunch on a 2 hour flight. As we arrived to meet our friends, we learned they were late with British Airways leaving “some” of their luggage in London.
We had a Volvo XC90 waiting for us in Glasgow but the steering wheel was on the wrong side. They had nothing else but a van with a manual transmission. We took a chance and decided to make the drive dealing only with “look right – stay left” as the bracelet said the agent provided me. After all, how hard could it be? Somehow we managed to get thru town to the 4 lane road to Edinburgh to pick up Chuck and Kelly. We had to take a breath a couple of times but made the trip with out a scratch.
We settled in the Oban Bay Hotel and tried Coasters on the Esplanade for dinner. A night cap and to bed with the windows open over looking the sea.
