More castles and coastal park ups

Monday 22 June 2026

Nido's parked up at the campsite run by the Community Boat Club in the village of Rosehearty on the Moray coast.  We have a view of the sweeping white sandy bay next to the harbour.  We stayed here before almost three years ago and celebrated my 60th birthday here.  We're booked in for two nights and will start to head south tomorrow.

Saturday morning we took another walk around St Cyrus National Nature Reserve, this time on a trail which focuses on the flowers, plants and insect life.  It was a quiet night, only broken by Salty being sick three times in the van!  I think he may have ingested some sand and seawater when playing on the beach, which irritated his stomach.  He was still unwell yesterday morning, but with plenty of rest, some food and water, he appears to have bounced back.

Our first stop on Saturday was Castle Fraser, another NTS property not far from Inverurie.  Starting life as a simple property, by 1635 it had grown wings, storey and turrets and is now a fine looking castle.  After walking around the gardens we entered the castle.  The self-tour route took us through a number of rooms, all reached by walking up and down narrow, steep spiral staircases within the turrets. Onwards, we also stopped at Pitmedden Garden, not far from Ellon, the gardens dating back to the 17th Century.  I was all gardened-out by then, so Salty and I chilled in the van and Cathy visited on her own, which I suspect she enjoyed much more than she said!  I spent the time compiling a complaint email to EcoFlow, as our powerbank had stopped charging on 12V.  We had this problem with the first one and this was the replacement provided under warranty.  Only three years old, it's now nothing more than a heavy paperweight - very annoying.  EcoFlow have offered a partial refund and I'm just waiting to find out how much.  I'll need to order a new powerbank ready for our EU tour, but it definitely won't be an EcoFlow.

For Saturday night's stop, I had a couple of options in mind.  The first - Forvie NNR car park was full and the parking spaces were a bit small, so we carred on a short distance to Port Errol harbour. This spot is obviously popular as it was rammed full. Luckily, I usually try to pin a few options so we drove on for about half and hour to Cairnbulg harbour, just east of Fraserburgh.  Only one other van was there so we had plenty of space, parked up overlooking the sea with the harbour to our right.  The other van, with a Bulgaria registration, was owned by a lovely American couple called David and Diane, who are full-timing and were spending time in the UK to reset their Schengen clock, ready for further EU travels.  We had a great chat with them about van-life and their travels.  They're off to the Orkneys and Shetland next and we told them out our trip to the Outer Hebrides last year, a place that's on their list to visit.

Another quiet night and following a food and fuel stop at the Tesco in Fraserburgh, we arrived at Rosehearty and checked in for £10 per night, including services.  It's a popular campsite and the locals are friendly.  We had a walk along the beach later, before sitting in the warm sunshine before supper.

This morning it was a bit windier and cloudier, which still is preferable to the extreme heat some are facing in the south of England this week.  We took a walk along the coastal path, past the harbour and old RAF lookout station, stopping off at a cottage ruin before taking a long zig-zag path down to a rocky cove.  Back in the village, we stopped in the shop to buy some bread rolls and cake, enjoying a slice with a welcome pot of tea outside the van.  Supper tonight is prawn paella with a side of moules.