Gifts

I feel rather awkward writing this section as I know a lot of you are spending quite a bit of money just to come up for the wedding. Still, people have asked about gifts and if you desperately want to buy us a present then (STA) travel vouchers we can put towards the honeymoon would be lovely and can be found at the link below.

STA travel vouchers

Extreme Sports! (Fishing, Whiskey etc.)

A lot of people have been asking me to post some information about fishing and whiskey - neither of which I know much about. However, the internet seems to know a great deal and so here, for your perusal, is a list of helpful sites found by the all-knowing entity which is google. If anybody local does know of any good places to fish/drink whiskey then please get in touch - as I say I'm rather unqualified to talk about this.

As well as the afore mentioned activities I'll also post links to the Castle Trail and so on. I'll add links to museums, cinemas and golf related things in a later post.

FISHING

http://www.fishing-scotland.net/dee.htm -- this site lists links to various places in Aberdeenshire. I'm told the main fishing rivers are the Don and the Dee, however there is also the Ythan which is apparently well known for its sea-trout.

http://www.fishingnet.com/misc/law.htm -- from the same site as the above link, here are the fishing laws for Scotland. Apparently there is no national rod licence, and fishing law falls into two categories.

http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/parks/fishing/fishing_season_permits.asp -- this is the official Aberdeenshire Council fishing permit site and lists the permit charges for 2008 and where permits can be purchased. It also lists locations in which these permits are valid. As far as I can tell if the land on which you want to fish is privately owned then you have to seek permission of the land owner, though as I said before, I'm not really the person to ask.

TOURIST TRAILS

There are five very interesting "trails" to go on whilst in Aberdeenshire - Whiskey, Castle, Victorian, Coastal and Stone Circle. This site will explain them far better than I could. http://www.agtb.org/touristtrails.htm Tolquhon is already on the Castle Trail and Haddo House is no more than one or two miles away. Haddo is really worth the visit - not only does it have a childrens play park, dog area and country park but it has a mile-long drive which, if you walk to the end of it, gives you the most stunning view over the countryside. There are also some bird-hides around the park if you're interested in bird watching and I'm told that there's an Osprey living there which is apparently quite rare. Also, it might be interesting to read a bit of what I've written about the coastal train as I go off on a tangent about Slains Castle.

As for whiskey - the whiskey trail is rather far north as you can see if you look at the above link. I'd advise you take the trail over a few days because each distillery is facinating and if you rush it they all sort of blur into one. Some of them have beautiful houses and gardens attached so it's really worth taking your time. The scenery up there is incredible too so it really is worth the treck.

The other trails - coastal, stone circle and Victorian I know less about. The coastal trail, as far as I can tell takes the road south towards Arbroath and St. Andrews, into golfing country. Heading north you'll go through Cruden Bay, which if I'm honest, isn't a particularly pretty place (nor is Peterhead, mind you!) however, Cruden Bay has two redeeming factors. The first is the magnificent beach and the second is the hidden gem which is Slains Castle. Slains is where Bram Stoker apparently put pen to paper when beginning Dracula and its easy to see how the stark cliffs and misty sea (locals call the mist a "haar") inspired the eerie novel. Slains, unlike any of the castles on the castle trail is completely free to visit however as the site is not maintained and is on the edge of a cliff there are no railings etc. Missed off the coastal trail, very unjustly, is the little harbour town of Collieston - if you're after a quaint little Scottish fishing village then you couldn't get more authentic than this. To the left is a picture. A similar small town, actually mentioned as part of the route is Pennan (pictured at the top of this post) - this has been used as a film location for various things over the years and rightly so. North, past Peterhead and Cruden Bay, Pennan is nestled down at the bottom of some cliffs. Mum and I took Percy Polo (my beloved car) down there one summer and his little 1 litre petrol motor cried all the way to the top again so the journey is not for the faint engined. The walk down is lovely, mind you, and there's a pub at the bottom for refreshment. Getting back up is the only problem...

Since the coastal trail goes so far north its easy to combine with the whiskey trail. Actually, it's rather easy to combine all of them - the trails are all signposted with brown roadsigns, using symbols to differentiate between the various routes.