We left the hotel at 8:30am, and headed north, stopping off at a supermarket for supplies. We arrived at St Andrews at 11am and got out.
St Andrews is famous for two things - golf, and its where William met Kate. Since neither of us are interested in either of those, we had a wander around the little town instead, which was really historic and pretty. It was a rather dreary day when we were there though. It had a nice church on the cliffs that you could wander around (the St Andrew's cathedral), so we had a look around then walked along the cliff path. When we'd seen enough, I introduced Josh to Pret, and we got some food to go.
We took our food from Pret and drove to Arbroarth Cliffs carpark to eat it. It was starting to be a slightly less miserable day, and this was a great spot to stop for lunch - loos nearby and a great view over the sea. The carpark was huge and mostly empty, probably due to the weather.
From there, we drove along the coast, stopping at a parking area for a walk along the cliffs to castle ruins. We were heading towards the ruins of Dunnottar Castle, perched on a rocky headland looking out to sea. Some of the ruins are older, as there has been a castle in that spot probably since the early middle ages (400-900AD), but most date from 15th to 16th century. You could go inside the castle grounds, but neither of us were that bothered - I find it hard to visualise what buildings would have looked like when they are in ruins, so we just walked along the cliff path until we were happy, then walked back again. It was still pretty horrible weather. I did, however, scale down a steep section to go to a pebbly beach below, which gave good views of the castle.
From there, we drove inland. There was a castle that I very much wanted to see nearby, and, after last night's camping debacle (we couldn't find one and ended up in a hotel), I looked online and booked a campsite for the night in that general direction. We ended up driving down all these little roads, and we spotted the castle through the trees on the way there. We had arrived at Craigievar Castle after it had closed, and the last of the day's tourists were walking towards their cars. The warden was locking up the big door and I whizzed around taking photos.
Craigievar Castle was built in 1626 and fell into disrepair in the 19th century and was almost demolished! But because it was considered a fine example of Scottish Baronial architecture, it was saved and in 2007-2009, the National Trust of Scotland restored it to its current form, including the pink external walls. This was believed to be a close approximation of the colour of the walls during an 1820 refurbishment, and I am glad they did it. For this is one of the prettiest castles I have ever seen, never having seen a pink castle before!
We drove into the Cairngorms for our campsite for the night. I had booked a cheap pitch at Ballater Caravan Park online, and we got there in the rain. The people there were really friendly, the pitches were a good size and the facilities were neat and tidy. The only problem was the weather, and there was a lack of undercover areas. We ended up cooking at the dishwashing area, and going to bed early and watching TV in the tent while the rain kept on all night! It was the best shower of our whole trip though!