Monday 27th March 2023
A walk with Anne from Portsoy to Banff (8.6 miles).
Anne and I were on holiday in a lovely little cottage in Portsoy. We did the longest walk of the holiday on Monday.
We left Driftwood Cottage about 10.30 and headed up what I think was a railway but is now a track to Loch Soy. Then we turned left and headed to the A98 and passed this impressive building. It seems to be the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation.

We crossed the A98 onto the B9139 which is the cycle route to Banff and is well signposted. This is looking back to Portsoy.

It is still very cold. Look at the snow!


This is a place called Cowhythe. A lovely farm house.

This is the old mill buildings.

We had a long plod along the B9139.




Eventually we saw Whitehills.

We turned off the B9139 to go down to Whitehills.







These lighthouses have been put up in different places by Marie Curie Cancer Research.


We reached the harbour at Whitehills about 12.25 so it was time for lunch. We had a chilly picnic overlooking the harbour.



Then we moved onto Banff.


Believe it or not that signpost in the distance says ‘Banff’.


This is us reaching some buildings on the outskirts of Banff.



Looking over Banff Harbour to Macduff.

This is the grounds of Banff Castle.


There is wonderful architecture in Banff. We passed this beautiful old building – St. Brandon’s.


We went on past St Mary’s Church to the public toilet. We then sat on a seat and watched the announcement of who had been elected Scotland’s new First Minister using my phone. Hamza Yousaf got the position. I am grateful. He is so incompetent that surely Scottish Nationalism stands no chance now. I am glad our friend Kate Forbes did not get the position. It would have damaged her as a person. She was very close. I think too the people of Scotland might have got behind her and cause the breaking up of the Union.
But we got so caught up in watching this that we missed the 2.01 number 35 bus back to Portsoy. We were certain there was another at 3.01. But there wasn’t. There was no bus till 4.01 so we had to kill 2 hours in Banff, not an easy thing to do. The photos following are taken on our wanderings. As I say Banff has the most wonderful buildings but there is not much happening. At 3.00 we went to find a cafe – all closed! So we bought cakes in the bakers and sat in the castle grounds to eat them. I had a monster pink iced and cream filled finger. It was delicious. Out of the wind the temperature was comfortable.






Another Marie Curie lighthouse.

We caught the 4.01 bus down in the town square and got back to Portsoy. It was a lovely day.

