We had slow pack up at Dufftown as our check out wasn’t until 11am, and our check in at the next site wasn’t until 1pm – but was only 50 mins drive away. We made the short journey to Banff, stopped to top up our fridge and made our way to our final campsite of the trip, Banff Links Caravan Park in time for 1pm.
Keith spent hours researching this, he felt sure we’d appreciate a good sea view (he was correct!), and spent ages trying to find one where we had a great view. His hours of research paid off and we were chuffed to bits when they said we could park side on the pitch as we were small.
So here’s a top tip. If you are booking this site and are in a VW, go for the ‘Seafront grass pitch with electric’. We stayed on pitch 29 and it was wonderful. At £35 pn we felt it was good value for the view alone. The toilets and showers were dated but that view. Money couldn’t buy it!
Keith made a haggis pizza to go in the remoska for lunch whilst we set up, and I’m not lying when I say we literally sat and watch the sea view. The WHOLE afternoon, evening, the whole of the next day and night and then some more the following day. It did not get old. I had brought my paddlebaord in the hope that i could use it here but the wind was high and as such a surf board would have been better!
We napped, ate, drank and marvelled at the view. The weather could have been better but could have been worse.
On Tuesday we began to feel guilty that we’d been VERY lazy, so decided to take a short walk up the beach to nearby Whitehall’s, where there is a very well stocked shop and a lovely cosy pub- we had a pint, well it would have been rude not too! AND a fishmongers. We could have spent a small fortune there but decided to get some Cullen skink tubs which had won awards. There was also a ceramic craft studio opposite the pub where I brought a lovely pair of earrings.
We passed the Roman well here, who knew the Romans got this far north, before making our way back to the van, satisfied that we’d had an adventure and an explore. Lol.
In actual fact, there is loads to do here. We’ve just visited this coast SO many times and we really need to stop and unwind this time.
If you are new to this area, firstly, what are you waiting for- please go and explore the Aberdeenshire coast line. Places of interest with easy access from this site
- Portsoy, an easy cycle way. Historic Harbour, filming location of Peaky Blinders. Great Ice cream!
- Cullen Skink. Nice little town, good beach, home to CULLEN SKINK, the most delicious fish chowder. A great old railway line to cycle here.
- Fraserburgh- fabulous lighthouse with a great lighthouse which you can visit.
- Macduff. Walkable. Filming location of the most recent series of The Crown. In fact last time we were here we saw Emelda Staunton filming!
- Gardenstown. Very cute little fishing village
- Crovie. Absolutely tiny but utterly delightful hamlet. No cars allowed on the main strip. Just charming.
- Pennan- one of the filing locations of the hit film Local Hero.
- Bow Fiddle Rock- a terrific rock formation. No prizes for what it resembles.
I’m sure I’ve missed stuff off here, but these are in the immediate area and most can be cycled too. There is a good bus service running along the coast and a fairly decent off road bike track covers a large portion of it.
Our campsite, Banff Links was a definite return to for us. We loved being able to go side on and although the weather wasn’t great, we lost hours just staring at the view.
We’ve had a great time up north, once again our hearts have been captured by Scotland- it’s the one place in the world that we consistently return to!
We look forward to returning again next year!
We’re off on our long haul adventure next week, which i’ll be blogging about on our sister site wanderleefy.com. It’s a very exciting one, and although we aren’t RVing, we ARE roadrripping and this tour particularly would work well in a camper. So if you’re interested… head on over and click subscribe.
We’ll be back out in the van in September!
Until next time Lx
(previous Aberdeenshire posts)
