Scotland / Week 2

Portsoy and the Moray Coast

The little village of Portsoy, along Aberdeenshire’s Moray Coast, boasts not one but two harbours. The Old Harbour was built in 1692, and its wharf, built of vertically-stacked stones, reminds me of a well-ordered box of pastels. (Pastel artists will know what I mean.) The New Harbour–and “new” is what it’s historically been called although now it seems tongue-in-cheek–was built in 1825. At one time, Portsoy, sitting along the Moray Firth, was considered the safest harbour in Scotland’s northeast and enjoyed a thriving trade in herring and other goods.

We have just finished up our second week, in Portsoy. It’s been a blustery time of gale-force winds and rain squalls. We even had a touch of snow mixed in with the rain one morning. Temperatures in the day have hovered around 9° C (48°F) with winds gusting up to 50 mph (curious, this mix of metric and Imperial systems) and, one day, depending on how cliffs and manmade structures can magnify wind, even up to 70 mph. This latter is an educated guess on my part, based on the fact that at one time I was nearly ejected from a path that went through a slot cut in a rock wall. We’ve been fascinated by the endless, incredible waves crashing over rocky ledges.

Even so, it’s been a good week. Despite the weather, we had frequent bouts of strong sunshine, and we took every advantage to hike and sketch. With our new friend, Faye-Marie, we traveled between Fraserburgh to the east and Findhorn to the west, exploring sea caves and crumbling castles, stone circles and beach huts, eco villages and great houses. At Duff House, in Banff, I saw a number of fine portraits of my ancestors, the Stewarts. (I should say “supposed” ancestors, as the only evidence of a connection comes from the amateur genealogists on Ancestry.) We also had lunch one day at the cafe of an “everything store” called the Spotty Bag Shop. Apparently, its distinctive bags are seen world-wide because tourists take them home as a sort of trophy from their travels. We did not get one.

Now, we are off to Pitlochry, at the foot of the Cairngorms, for a couple of days before heading to the Isle of Arran via ferry. Arran is sometimes called “Scotland in miniature.” I leave you with a few photos and sketches from this week. As always, you can follow me on Instagram for a more frequent dose of images from our Scottish adventure.