Closer to the North Pole

Thursday 21st September

It rained all day! Cloud level was so low that as we passed wind turbines we could see the bases of the towers but not the blades. In the morning we visited some wonderful coastal villages, a single row of houses right next to the sea wall with a concrete walled harbour, but it was too damp to take photos, or take a pleasant stroll, so we assured each other that we would return in the afternoon once the weather cleared.

Gardenstown - Thomas Murray was born near here.

 

We did return to the coast late in the afternoon but the weather was worse - now it was very cold and  windy as well as wet. However we still had a good day. Spent two hours or more tramping through cemeteries at New Pitsligo with the wet gear on. There were quite a few Murray graves but none that we were looking for - many of the oldest grave stones were just too difficult to decipher. We found the cottage that Thomas and Anne lived in in the main street in 1861and felt we got a good feel for the place and the surrounding country - very much like some of Western Victoria - low green hills with sheep farming and hay production.

The cottage on the left and would have had smaller windows and no dormer window 160 years ago

 

To fill in time we drove to Fraserburg, right on the tip of the North East side of Scotland, and found by chance a well set up museum which had an emphasis on the port and the fishing industry. The port is over 400 years old and was established so that goods could be shipped to Norway and the Baltic States. The herring industry then developed and photos from the 1890's showed hundreds of fishing sail boats in the harbour. It is still a significant port with many people employed in the fishing and food processing industries and in a lot of other industries associated with maintenance of ships. As well as being a hop step and jump from Norway we realised that we were probably as close to the North Pole as we are ever going to get - hence the cold wind! Some of the North Sea fishing fleet was in port when we drove down and I was amazed at the size of the boats.