We met at the bus stop at 9am this morning to catch the bus to Waverly Station where we would catch the train. We bought our tickets, headed to our platform, and were on our way.
Beautiful views out the train window...
We arrived in North Berwick and hadn’t walked far when we came to a golf course. The kids ran and rolled around for a few minutes before we walked to catch our bus to Tantallon Castle.
When we were walking along, we stopped at the beach for a few minutes while we waited for our bus to arrive.
First time touching the North Sea
Once our bus came, we boarded it and headed to the castle. We have seen several castles on this trip (I think this was our 5th), and each is stunning in its own way.
Here are a variety of shots from Tantallon Castle... The rock to the left of the castle is called Bass Rock, and those white spots are sea gannets. This is the location of the largest colony of sea gannets in the world!
We knew it was going to be windy today... but wow!
And some of the many views from the top...
We were killing time, waiting for the bus to come back to get us...
A bus came along (going the wrong direction for us), and the same driver, Linda, who dropped us off asked if we knew we still had a while to wait. She told us it would still be over an hour until our bus came. We had incorrectly read the schedule. She invited us to get on her bus (where we would be out of the wind and the cold) and ride along, and we agreed. Soon after we were on the bus, she said she could drop us off at a coffee shop in a small village, and after the shift change, another driver would come back to get us. Perfect! Another happy accident, because the scones there were delicious!
We moved back our booking for “linner” from 2:30 to 3:15, and the schedule worked out great. We headed to Rocketeer for a meal, and I got the seafood chowder, which came highly recommended by Seth. It was excellent!
After our meal, we went back out to the beach for a bit before walking around North Berwick.
One place we came to was a cemetery. This is on the property along with ruins from a church (Kirk Ports). Apparently people aren’t allowed to put their cemetery grave markers back in place by themselves... they have to pay to have it done, and it’s expensive and doesn’t often happen.
We walked by another cute church with a bell with a very cool story!
We continued walking, seeing beautiful homes and flowers around North Berwick.
As we were walking along, we came across a lighthouse statue. I have a thing for lighthouses, so of course I was willing to pay 20p to have it light up. Well, two tries and it didn’t work, but we took a picture there anyway.
There were windows on the side for you to get a glimpse of what a real lighthouse looks like on the inside, and Asher really wanted to see in!
More walking around, on our way back to the train station...
We ended up having to wait at the station for a while, because our train was delayed, then cancelled, and then another one was delayed.
By the time we got back to Edinburgh, it was 7pm. Seth took the kids home, and Brittany came with Ken, Pauline, and me to find a place for drinks. On the way we got a great view of the Scott Monument.
We struck out twice (first place was closed on Mondays; second had no room to sit) before ending up at The Old Bell again. We were all happy with that decision!
They were playing trivia in there tonight. We arrived too late to officially play, but we played along on our own and had a great time. One of the questions tonight was “Who was the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland during the 1500s?” Shall we say it was providence that we ended up at this pub tonight? :)
Another banner day... hard to believe tomorrow is our last day before heading home!
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