This was a much better day for weather and scenery, and with the city way behind I felt I was on holiday. From Turriff we rode along the Deveron valley to its sea outlet at Banff, a pretty town in need of a tea shop. Here we turned west along the coast and enjoyed a lovely run past Cullen overlooking the sea with fine rocky views before turning inland to take the B9139 to Portsoy. Another section of old railway led us into Buckie, another attractive stone built town.
After crossing the Spey Viaduct we turned our backs on the sea again to reach Elgin. Oldmills Garden was another excellent B&B with free wi-fi where our host offered us her kitchen if we wanted to get a takeaway. None of the restaurants in the town appealed so we bought food from M&S, which gave me sufficient time to watch a narrow England win over the Ukraine in the Euro 2012 football tournament.