#Scotland 2015 – Sept 16, 2015

We decided last night that today would be the day we went to Aberdeen. And for a change, we would get the train from Huntly. We’d never travelled the railway from Huntly to Insch so thought it would make for an interesting journey.

Our friend Fiona offered to drive us into Huntly to catch the train and pick us up at the station when we returned. The off-peak day return tickets cost £27.20. We decided to take 10:24 from Huntly (putting us in Aberdeen at 11:25) and return on the 15:27 from Aberdeen (and back in Huntly at 16:18).

Shopping wasn’t on the agenda (unless you count the Aberdeen map) what we picked up at WH Smith in the Union Square Shopping Centre.

This trip was to get photos for book trailers for the sequel to A Shadow in the Past and another book I’m working on (sort of – still in the plotting stage but the locations known). To make a long story short, I didn’t print my google map of our walking tour before we left Canada so had to resort to buying a small street atlas. At least I knew the street names and could visualize my google map so knew where all we had to go.

As always, we found our way into the Castlegate. But in addition to there, we were at the harbour, on Shiprow, Exchequer Row, Castlehill, Union Street, Rosemount Viaduct and beyond.

And unlike our day trip to Aberdeen in 2013 when I only took the picture of the sign for “Donald’s Way” – this time I got “the Donald” pointing to his sign.

We started for Queens Road (I needed a photo of one of the huge villas out there) but with the time of day and distance to walk there, we were afraid of missing our train and leaving Fiona sitting at the station waiting for us.

We made a stop at a different WH Smith when we returned to the station and picked up a couple of computer magazines and the book Scottish Murders.

I noticed when the train passed through Kennethmont that the B9002 (where there had been roadworks the previous day and this morning) was now open.