An Easter Break In Montrose - Day 3

Montrose Basin and The Lurgies

Our third day started out with a walk called The Lurgies, which is a path around the edge of a part of the Montrose Basin, starting from Old Montrose Pier and ending at the Bridge of Dun. As usual, we missed the turn off for the little car park at Old Montrose Pier and ended up parking beside the Bridge of Dun and doing the walk the wrong way (and back again).

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance survey of Northern Ireland.

Montrose Basin is a popular haunt of "twitchers" as it is rich in bird life such as Sedge Warbler, Pink-footed Goose, Knot, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Mute Swan, Grey Partridge, Lapwing, Shelduck, Wigeon, Reed Bunting and Eider and it is a designated Local Nature Reserve.

Montrose Across The Basin

The Lurgies path is an easy stroll along part of the bank of the River South Esk and along the edge of the Basin along to the pier. I'd advise sticking to the path though as it's easy to wander off of it and end up having to back-track to get round water obstacles. There are some very good views to be had across the Basin to Montrose and you can also see the House of Dun from the path.

House of Dun

Once we'd "done" The Lurgies, we headed up to the House of Dun, in the hope of getting a bit of lunch. The beautiful Georgian House was designed by William Adam for David Erskine, the 13th Laird of Dun in 1730 and it also has very nice Victorian gardens overlooking the Montrose Basin.

The House of Dun

We passed a few hours touring the house, gardens and woodland walks. The gardens were quite busy as they'd organised an Easter Egg hunt for the kids.

Scurdie Ness

It was still early so we headed out for walk out to look at the Scurdie Ness lighthouse. Parking at the end of the road in Ferryden, it's an easy walk out along the road to the lighthouse and you have the option to go past on on along the grassy banks for a ways on the other side.


The wind was whipping up a bit and there was a good surf rolling in towards Montrose.

Eating Out

Back in Montrose for the evening, we fancied a Chinese meal and of the two we found on the High Street, the Shanghai looked the far better choice. They offered a buffet, but nothing like any buffet we'd ever come across as there was nothing laid out for the diners to pick and choose from.

What they did was basically let you order anything off of the menu as you wanted it. It was a bit odd but it worked okay as they brought us a selection of starters all at once. We tried several main courses as well so it seemed to work okay for them and the diners and it saves using up valuable seating space with a buffet selection and you get freshly cooked dishes too.

The food was very good as well so I'd definitely recommend it.