Port Erroll and Stains Castle

We had a quiet night in Banff and in the morning set out for a walk around the town. Eileen was keen to see what they had in the way of charity shops but we only found two and they were a bit limited. It was a lovely morning with a good light and clear views across the bay. We left Banff at 11:30 and drove east, the plan today was to explore Peterhead, we had been to Fraserburgh in March 2017 but that was a cold wet windy day so we did not see much of the town just the impressive Lighthouse museum. However it was not to be as there were major roadworks in Peterhead and I gave up trying to get Bertie to the planned parking space by the sea. Thus we decided to carry on to our overnight stopover on the harbour at Port Erroll and spend the afternoon there.

After lunch I was keen to explore. There was quite a strong wind so Eileen preferred to stay indoors. I had read about a dramatic ruined castle close by and so I set off along the coast path northwards. It was a dramatic walk along the cliffs and the ruined castle soon appeared. The amazing ruins of Stains Castle is surprisingly completely open to the public and anyone can ramble around the ruins which look far from safe.

In the evening the wind abated and we had a nice walk together around the village and then across the footbridge to the beach on the other side.

We had a rather noisy night at Port Erroll as the wind buffeted Bertie a bit and the waves crashing in to the breakwater below us were also quite noisy. In the morning we investigated the toilet block. We did not need services as this is such a short trip but it is always useful to know what is available. The toilets were locked but we did find a water tap that was working.