Aberdeen- Day trips Cruden, Slains Castle Cullen Portknockie public transport?

Bumping this up.

Linda, we have spent time in Aberdeenshire, but always with a car and have visited many of the castles in the area, but we have not been to Slains.

I think either one would be enjoyable, but you are already seeing a castle ruin with Dunnotar, so I would probably choose the Cullen/Portnockie tour. This is assuming bus time for both tours are similar.

In theory both are possible in the day-
Cullen and Portknockie - 90 minute train ride to Elgin, then 60 minutes on hourly bus #35 to Cullen.
Slains/Cruden Bay- good service from Aberdeen with last one back at 10pm (pretty much last light). X60/X63, 61.
Realistically I might like to also give time to Elgin if going to Cullen; and time to Peterhead and Fraserburgh if going to Cruden.
In summary it can be done I believe as both, if it should be is a more open question.

Hi, Linda,

This might be a possibility, if you haven't already tried them:

https://www.getyourguide.com/aberdeen-l93615/from-aberdeen-north-east-of-scotland-coastal-tour-t351866/

Tour includes Gardenstown, Pennan (for Local Hero fans), Fraserburgh, Cruden Bay (for Slains Castle), and the Bullers of Buchan.

https://www.goscotlandtours.com/rab-aberdeen/north-east-250-tour.html

Tour includes Cullen, Portsoy, Bow Fiddle Rock, Slains Castle, and Bullers of Buchan.

Mike (Auchterless)

Thank you jean for your insight on choosing the Cullen Portknockie trip. Yea, I’m finding as I age, I’m not as bold and adventurous as I used to be. Don’t like driving by myself in uncharted territory so I’m going to dive deep into seeing what is possible for public transportation in the area. So far this is what shows up on the TravelLine website for planning the journey.

Aberdeen>Cullen: ScotRail train towards Inverness @ 08:23, getting off at Keith @ 09:29and transferring to Bus #309 towards Cullen @ 09:36. Same bus from Cullen to Portknockie and then it would be a walk/hike to see the Bow Fiddle Arch and the coastline/birding. The problem I am seeing is the afternoon bus #309 from Portknockie to Cullen goes a different circular route and is much longer. I wonder about taxi or ride share service in Portknockie. Ugh! Maybe I should continue searching for an organized tour. Rabbies doesn’t go there on my schedule.

Maybe Stuart will respond with some ideas.

Oh Mike, I was hoping either you or Stuart would pipe in. Thank you for the tour companies. I will check them out.

Oops. ETA: thank you Stuart for your thoughts on my DIY trip. I have some thinking to do.

The 309 is a Cullen circular- so if you got off that morning bus at Cullen it sits there for 13 minutes before continuing to Portknockie then round it's long circuit back to Keith.
Most journeys have a very long wait at Keith, presumably waiting rail connections in both directions before returning to Cullen.
The 35 Elgin bus in the other direction goes to Aberdeen and is a double decker in my experience.
But it takes all but 3 hours to do so.
So for instance the 1442 from Portknockie/1447 Cullen gets you back to Aberdeen at 1729.

This might be a possibility, if you haven't already tried them:
https://www.getyourguide.com/aberdeen-l93615/from-aberdeen-north-east-of-scotland-coastal-tour-t351866/
Tour includes Gardenstown, Pennan (for Local Hero fans), Fraserburgh, Cruden Bay (for Slains Castle), and the Bullers of Buchan.

I like Mike's idea of a tour, since you will get to visit Cruden Bay, Slains Castle and the Bullers of Buchan, which are all wonderful! I also enjoyed Portknockie. Quite frankly, the entire coastline is worth a visit. I loved Elgin and the cathedral ruins as well. But definitely Slains and the Bullers of Buchan, which are just incredible (and you will see tons of birds there).

Thanks everyone for your ideas and tips on DIY transportation in Aberdeenshire. I’ve decided to go ahead and book that tour that includes almost everything I wanted to see. This return trip to Scotland is turning out to be quite the adventure. I’m 2 1/2 weeks in Italy and Portugal before getting back to Scotland on this trip. So, 40 days and 40 nights of travel. The longest trip yet for me.