26 August 2015 - Aberdeen Maritime Museum

Ach so drookit, but before the end of the day there was a cloudless blue sky by the North Sea.  Tim braved the morning drizzle and went for a run before the rest of us were awake.

Looking out over the Don Estuary

 Karl, Luke and I headed off to the Aberdeen Maritime Museum and left the big kids at home doing their schoolwork: their choice so it was a win-win situation.

One man submarine - Aberdeen Martime Museum

We parked along the Esplanade and walked into a fresh headwind by the North Sea with the gulls squawking as they battled the wind.  Lovely!

Polystyrene head subjected to underwater pressure - at 100, 700, and 1000 metres depth - the smallest head was so shrunken!

 The Maritime Museum is built to encompass the Provost’s old house which is now a gallery with very squeaky floorboards.  The exhibitions followed the general history and industry of Aberdeen as a North Sea city: fishing, whaling and more recently the oil industry.  The huge boats in the harbour are more or less just across the road from the museum and take supplies to the oil rigs. The car ferry which goes to the Orkney Islands was also moored there waiting for the 6 PM sailing.

Detailed ship models

 We had a great time looking around and enjoyed a video about life on an oil rig and Luke particularly enjoyed the one man submarine and Remote Operated Vehicle for trench searching.

Model of oil rig

 It was a bit of a giggle talking to one of the Museum staff about his life experiences.  He’d failed the medical and couldn’t get into the Navy despite his musical abilities, which I guessed before he told us: a tuba.  Tubby the Tuba came to mind immediately!  He was such a delightful jolly fellow and he gave us the low down on all the ships and we were the last visitors to leave the museum at closing time!

View from the museum windows

The Provost's house incorporated into museum - works well!

Castlegate - see what I mean about cloudless blue sky!

 We walked to Castlegate and sat in the old square there and had our snack before heading back to the beach to go back to our car.  Luke loved skipping along the beach putting more and more rocks in his pockets to the point where his trousers actually fell down with the weight of rocks.  We have to have a serious rock culling session before we move on but it will be a difficult choice for him as he would love to take the entire beach back to Australia with him for his museum.  I agree that the rocks are lovely – polished colourful granites honed by the North Sea, some almost perfectly round marbles and others flat almost circular discs.  Nature doing her refining work!

Trouser pockets so full that his trousers were falling down!

The vastness....of the North Sea

 The Esplanade road was bumper to bumper so we decided to walk along the cliff to the Don Estuary and along the muddy inlet for half an hour until the traffic eased.

Don Estuary

Nature's canvas

Scotch Thistles everywhere

 

So lovely looking out to the sea.

It was another late evening meal as we needed to go via Inverurie for some milk on the way home.  There is no local shop to buy supplies in our little rural area and shops are 20 minutes’ drive away so it was better to do the shop on the way home.  Luke was delighted to have a feast of Lorne Sausage, Haggis and Black Pudding for dinner whereas the big kids opted for chicken pieces.  Luke, our fussy eater, has loved porridge and all the unusual Scottish foods!