Rising Road: Trailblazing Part 3: Taking the Castle

"The only way of catching a train that I have ever discovered is to miss the train before."- G.K. Chesterton

This trip would take us to Arbroath to see an abbey made of Old Red Stone (yes, that is an abbey with walls of red, or a redwall abbey), have a lunch of smokies, then on to Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle. Notice the use of "would." Here is a little map of our day, starting at Arbroath.
Well Chesterton, you said it there. We started out our confusing day by missing our train. We got on the last bus that would safely get us to Leuchars, and after two flexi-stops (pick ups along a route at designated, non-station places), we got there with two minutes to spare. Let me make that a little more accurate; we got there with two minutes to spare according to our knowledge. What we did not know was that our train was actually scheduled to leave two minutes before what we heard. It was a nice hour wait before leaving for Arbroath. We did get there though, just in time to join our professor/group leader (misinformant) and his family for lunch. Arbroath is famous for smoked salmon called smokies. The head, spine, and tail are removed, but the skin and the dozens of covert, hypodermic needle bones lining the meat are left. I have named these bones "the salmon's revenge." Later I'll come up with a better name. But whoever created the skeletol structure of salmon was definitely in a sadistic mood that day. I happened upon the Fife Farmers' Market on my way to the station, so I had a smokie cooked by a father/son tandem (who for all the world looked like Texans) on the oak smoke pit set up next to them (maybe that's why they looked like Texans). We had to get the heck out of dodge pretty quickly, since we arrived an hour late, so we hauled our hindquarters back to the station to catch a train for Stonehaven. To avoid being late, I may or may not have shaved three minutes off our available time to make it to the station. We may or may not have been running through the town (with my compass in my hand). We made it to the station though, with those three hidden minutes to spare, and with no train in sight... As if on cue, the voice from above told us our train would be delayed ten minutes. Not the train we arrived to on the dot of departure: the train that we would make with three minutes to spare was delayed. Irony loves me.
We made it on board, and headed the next half hour up to Stonehaven (Arbroath is thirty minutes from Leuchars, so it made for a good day to hit two places). We arrived, and headed East. I'm terrible with street directions (as anyone who knows me will attest) but I knew the harbor lay on the East side of town, and our trail was north of it. We were (at least I was) in a bit of a hurry. Dunnottar Castle closes at "5:00pm or sunset: whichever comes first," and we arrived at a little past three. It was just under three miles (again, lateral miles) to the castle, and we are not known for being the speediest when it comes to getting places. After making it to the harbor, using the facilities, and taking a brief and unexpected 5 minute stop in the Tolbooth Museum (an interesting building that has had a varied past, but now commemorates local geology and nautical history), we hit the trail: at what looked like a vertical hill overlooking the harbor. From the harbor we could see the War Memorial, about our 1/3 way mark, which was encouraging (as the walk down from the station had taken about 3/4 of a mile).

Photo Break: There is a lot of writing in this one, so here is a brief intermission.

The Old Brew House

A ship in Arbroath Harbor

Really and truly, our trip to the castle was fairly uneventful. It was beautiful, hilly, and much of it was comprised of a two foot stretch of trail between barbed wire fencing and a few seconds of air time above a stone beach. That was neat. Upon arriving at the castle, we celebrated at having made it by 4:30 and with plenty of sun left. As the first of us made it down then up again (the castle is connected to the mainland by a small isthmus of much lower altitude) we were fairly well celebrating. A very welcoming voice greeted us at the door with, "We're closed. Sorry." As I stood there hedging my bets on storming the castle, (they made them near impossible for the small Europeans of the time to scale the walls, but the windows looked quite doable, if unrecommended for one of my length) I decided not to get deported. I may or may not regret having missed an opportunity to claim a castle in the name of Texas. So we explored the cliffs and valleys around the castle, including a cavern under the castle that housed the Scottish Regalia when Cromwell went on his hissy-fit against Charles II. I even brought out my inner goat and went down an incredibly steep hillside to the beach. Along the way, I stumbled upon a small group of ducks (which allowed me to get within a couple of yards to them) in a little creek. After that, we headed back with our dying sunlight. I secretly thought we wouldn't be fortunate enough to have any on the hike back, so I brought a couple flashlights. The group didn't need to know that... We made it back to town with plenty of time for several trains, so naturally, we walked the entire town four times looking for dinner, went back to the harbor, discovered their prices to be ridiculous, then settled on some friend take-out at the Carron: home the the Deep Fried Mars Bar. We ate in the train station, then made our way home from another successful day.
I should mention that on our way back, it started raining just the town side of the Memorial, so before our final decent, we ducked into some amazingly water proof fir trees, mostly because I wanted an excuse to smell the wonderful aroma of turned loam, wild grasses, and the slightly stronger scent of fresh rain on green firs.