The Days of Long Walk #1

 Good evening... gentlemen... (and ladies of course ^^)

And thus begun a period in our lives that can be the most accurately described as 'The Days of the Long Walk'. We would go almost every day on some trip or another, exploring the surroundings of the city, making an excursion to a nearby town, or just walking around Aberdeen and the beach. And of course visiting our favorite Lidl, what in itself is a good 2+ hours trip there and back from where we live (as we found out lately, that one is actually the furthest of the 3 closest to our apartment :P But hey, at least we got some exercise :D ).

This part of the blog will be children-friendly, meaning lots and lots of pictures. ^^

So, first off, we went to the Sea-shore, past Asda, when...

Dinner!!

Ehm, I mean... Bunny!!

The shore. :) It was a bit cloudy that day, not cold. By Scotland standards that is :P

And by the way, yeah, that's your typical Scottish weather right there. Cloudy, overcast sky and yet somehow the sun is shining. And there are examples of just the opposite as well. Beautiful clear sky, whit just a small white cloud, and suddenly you get a cast of light rain on you, and you're just looking "Whaa, where did that come from?"

Pity I can't show you moving pictures. Those clouds were fast!

The shore-line. It's near  the hight of the tide here, so most of it is under water.

It's a strangely enthralling feeling watching the waves clash against the pavement. At low-tide these walkways lead down to sandy beach. But now, they are just an instrument of the hypnotic ocean music.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the clothing: these pictures are still from August. :P

The same beach an hour or so later. The sea is retreating, and those walkways are already fully exposed.

The waves are still mesmerizing though ^^

Found a crab-scissor on the beach ^^ No sign of the owner. Either the seagulls got him, or he just lost his paw and continues to crawl around in the sea. It happens to crabs.

 And yep :D That's a kid, swimming in the sea. :P Please note that Vika is wearing a jacket. And that this is the North Sea. The water temperature is around 4 degrees..

From the mouth of the harbour.

And the shore right across it. The harbour itself is actually the mouth of the river Dee. (like Dee-Dee in Dexter :P )

That's the ruins of a small fort right across. It's no more then a stone wall from the land-side, and earth-ramparts from the sea, with 2 artillery positions within it.

Fast-forward two days, and this here is part of the University campus.

A little secluded area, with a small fountain, pond, and the measuring statue on it. We were heading to the Seaton park again when we discovered this little atmospheric place.

No idea what the proper name for this instrument/statue it is, but it's cool ^^

And just as we were entering the park from the cemetery side, we noticed this lovely little path to the left.

The whole path is made of slates of granite.

It's like a granite river ^^

Which leads to a throne :P

(Oh, on a side note: the shoes. They were perhaps the first thing we bought here. They are completely water-tight, and trust me, you need to have them if you're around here.)

The Seaton park, in the center of it.

And remember I told you the river Don runs along it's western border? ^^

Well, ok, the previous picture was actually just a small side-branch of it, with a small island between it and the main river.

That's the Don.

Lovely, very scenic river. Not as big as the Danube, naturally, but hey. Pity you can't go with a canoe on in :/

So now we're following the river's path all along the Seaton park. It goes around to the north, past the park, encircling the hill with the student-village on top of it, and then east again to flow into the sea.

I just couldn't stop taking all those pictures :P Acting like a natural-born tourist :D

The river is actually pretty low, lower then it usually is. The black muddy parts are usually underwater.

This is how the path around the student-village looks like ^^

And now we are slowly coming to the mouth of the river.

That's the bridge I took the pictures from. We didn't cross it, but continued on this side of the river. And these are a few cottages just by the bridge, all alone on this side. Must be lovely to live here.

And that's the view from their front-yard. And that's the main Bridge of Don over there, across which the main road Kings Street goes. (For the first few weeks I actually though that the 'Bridge of Don' is that bridge. As it turns out, no, the Bridge of Don is actually the name of the district on the north side of it.

There was a small wooden-earthen step that led down from the path to this little alcove in the river, but it was terribly muddy.

Still, it was worth it, as we got a beautiful view of the first bridge and the cottage alongside it.

Sorry if I'm making you jealous :D (No, we didn't yet encounter any hobbits :P)

Buuut, we did encounter these things here ^^

Yup, seals ^^

We have finally made it all around the hill of the student-village, and came upon a field. Also, I just wanted to show you that they do have a few high-rise building in Aberdeen, though you don't find the 'lakópark' styled districts here as you would in Budapest, at least not with hight-rises.

And this is the Don-mouth.

A view over the bridge. Again, the river is very low right now. Note that green strip that runs along the bottom of that stone-mound? That's where the water-level usually is.

And that's there is a swimming seal :P

When I saw this I had to take a picture of it. If you have to put up a sing like that at the North Sea, then you know you have Russians living in the region. :D

Nearing the sea.

They have this lovely wooden walkway leading to the shore, covered with netting. And also, as you can see on the right, there are cases with life-rings all along the sea shore, every 100 meters or so.

The green moss-like thingie is until where the water usually goes up.

Strange as it seems, the whole of the river mouth is filled up with sand, and it's only that stretch on the right side through which the river flows into the sea. The one of the left soon ends in a dead-end bay.

That's the river-mouth.

Those are the fishing ships just off the coast. There is a big fish-farm right along the shore, and these ships are out day and night harvesting.

We started off back towards the city center, this time along the sea.

Starting from here up until the harbour, the whole shore is divided by these wooden 'separators'.

This is how it looks from the other side.

The role of these separators is to catch the sand as the waves bring it in, and to make it pile-up, so that the constant waves are actually slowly building the beach instead of eating further into the land.

As you can see here, in some places the entire fence is almost completely covered by sand by now. But in other places you still have the effect of the beach being higher on one side and lower on the other.

Look whom we met along the road ^^

This is the top of the same kind of walkway that you can see as at the start of the blog. Except here it's all buried up.

And we're back again at the University. Yup, those buildings are the university. Well, part of it, there are at least 50 of them strewn over the area, with facilities and student homes and everything.

Miu >^^<

Nighty-night everyone!