Cruden Bay, Bullers of Buchan and Slains Castle

The walk begins at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel, which still has the same dignified facade as when Bram Stoker, creator of Dracula, took up temporary residence in 1894. The walk heads east to Castlewoods, an oasis of broadleaved trees sheltering wild flowers, butterflies and woodland birds. Much of Buchan is a wind=blasted plateau, bereft of tree cover, and the little glen is a calm sanctuary in an area renowned for its dramatic, largely untamed scenery.

The walk continues across flat fields to the clifftops, which in summer are a blaze of red campion, ragged robin and thrift. The sheer cliff drops to a rock strewn coastline, where gulls scream endlessly above the roar of the tide. The entire Buchan coast is a seabird paradise, with breeding colonies of herring gull, kittiwake, razorbill, shag, guillemot and fulmar.

Soon, the tiny isolated hamlet of Bullers O'Buchan comes into view, perched on the clifftops. In 1881, it was home to 43 fishermen, who ran 21 boats. Today the village is purely residential. Below the village, the Bullers of Buchan was once a massive cave, but the roof fell into a chasm 200 feet deep. The sea enters this noisily through a rock archway at water level, hence the name 'bullers' (boilers). James Boswell described the Bullers in 1773 as a 'monstrous cauldron' when he and Dr Samuel Johnson explored it by sea.

The return route to Cruden Bay is a little tamer. The route skirts Slains Castle. Built around 1597, it was the ancestral home of the Earls of Erroll. The ruin sprawls across the cliff edge to the east of Cruden Bay. As punishment for the role that the 9th Earl, Francis Hay, played in the Jacobite unrest, James VI of Scotland had destroyed an earlier family seat belonging to the Erroll's. Hay built Slains on his return from exile, and his descendants rebuilt and extended the castle; the last major embellishments date from 1837.

Boswell and Johnson stayed here, lavishly entertained by the Earl, but Boswell was not entirely grateful. He slept uneasily in his room; "the sea at which my window looked, roared and the pillows were made of some sea-fowls feathers which had to me a disagreeable smell".

In 1916, death duties forced the 20th Earl Charles Hay, to sell the castle and the estate to the shipping magnate, Sir John Ellerman. Ellerman removed the roof in 1925 and had the castle partially dismantled. Now a perplexing maze of chiselled, pink granite towers, massive stone lintels and underground vaults contrasts with ancient archways walled up with 20th century house bricks.

A path over the hilltops leads from Slains Castle to Port Erroll Harbour, built between 1875 and 1880. It was hoped to establish a herring industry in the area, but the venture failed, due partly to the strong tides in the North Sea along this coast.

The Ladies Bridge over the Water of Cruden was built in 1922, following a collection among the ladies of the parish. It leads onto the broad crescent of the Bay of Cruden, one of Europe's finest beaches. On 30 July, 1914, a second hand, single seater plane taxied on the sands, took off, and headed cross the North Sea and into the record books. The pilot was a Norwegian commander by the names of Tryggve Gran, who flew 300 miles to Stavanger in Norway in a little over four hours - the first ever flight across the North Sea. His achievement was largely ignored by the world's media as World War I broke out soon afterwards.

The treacherous rocks seen by looking across the sandy shore to the south side of Cruden Bay are 'The Skares'. Over the centuries, many small ships have been wrecked on them. This area was a favourite haunt of Bram Stoker, who would sit on the promontory looking out across the broad bay to the towers of Slains Castle on the skyline. There are local claims that in the early drafts of the classic novel, Count Dracula first landed on British soil at Cruden Bay - no doubt to take up residence in the spacious castle dungeons. Alas, if this is true, in revisions Stoker substituted Cruden Bay for Whitby, where the legend now remains.

As you walk back to the start of the walk, you pass a red-granite stone memorial, which bears a simple inscription commemorating the epic flight across the North Sea. This was unveiled in 1972 by Tryggve Gran on his return to Cruden Bay at the age of 86 - recognition at last for his great achievement.