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Cove - Aberdeen

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We had 5 willing and able participants for walk 4 of 2025. Researched by Dave, it entailed a 2 bus trip for Nigel, Jeb and me on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year. As usual, the 201 had heaters blasting away and we were stuck on the sun-facing right hand side of the bus for the trip to Aberdeen. We had the pleasure of Ian Sharp's company on this journey as he was meeting up with an old pal for lunch. We met up with Ken, Dave and Ruby at Aberdeen bus station and we all jumped on the no.3 bus for the short trip to Cove. Jeb was totally unburdened by any backpack containing fluids etc and was relying on a pit stop at the Cove Bay Hotel to stock up so the rest of us, ungrudgingly, joined him: The narrowish coastal path was just behind the hotel so off we set: It's basically a clifftop walk and the contours of the land meant we often zig-zagged our way north along the coast. These were some of the views we had: Ken and Jeb wanted to have a closer look and, like Yes, ...
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Kincar - Aboyne

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Our 3rd walk of 2025 was designed to allow a few beers at the Boat Inn, Aboyne - somewhere we hadn't been for a while. I had suggested we should try the new(ish) trails that started at the Horse Welfare Centre/Belwade Farm and perhaps start the walk further east on the Deeside Way at Kincar or even Potarch. Dave trumped that suggestion, proposing that we start with a river walk from Kincar - one he had tested with Ruby. A slight timing issue was that Dave and Nigel had booked to play pickleball from 3:30 to 4:30 pm but Dave resolved the issue by volunteering to pick Ken and I up after pickleball. Nigel's kit was dropped off at home and I met them at the foot of Corsee and we hared over to Finzean to pick Ken up - then over to Dave's to collect Ruby. All went well and we managed to start the walk in Kincar a few minutes before the planned 5:15 pm. Dave parked his car - who knew that Kincar had a car park? - and we walked past a number of huge new houses before arriving at th...
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Crathie - Braemar

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What a glorious day we (inadvertently) chose to do the Crathie to Invercauld walk again with the new path from Invercauld to Braemar added on. Good turnout of 8 of us too. The 201 was on time - and surprisingly full - and we got to Crathie to start our walk, after a brief pee stop, at exactly 11:19 am. A quick selfie here: We again chose the more easterly pedestrian bridge to cross the Dee and walked up past the Balmoral Cairns and out in to the open where we had fine views of Lochnagar straight ahead, but Ken and Nigel had oviously spotted something else: After an hour or so along the wide tracks it was time to stop for a quick snack and hydration: The road then sweeps down to a bridge over a burn and that's where I took a couple of team photos - the 2nd as a selfie: The wide paths continue for a while - we had to step aside a couple of times to let vehicles to pass - where were they going? When we reached a shelter on the right we turned off the main trail and took a narrow, slig...
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