Pressendye

From http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/

Dave, John, Colin and I finally decided to walk up Pressendye, overlooking Tarland, yesterday. Weather conditions were fair - no rain, mild and occasional glimpses of sunshine. There was a bit of wind at the top, but nothing much really.

We parked in the square at Tarland and walked west out of the village, initially along a single track tarred road. The walk is signposted blue, but there was a distinct dearth of signs on the initial part of the walk, which meant we missed a turn and ended up walking over 11 miles, instead of the planned route of 9 miles (check http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/aberdeenshire/pressendye.shtml )

It was a circular route:

I suspect we were meant to cut across from point 5 to point 8 - or maybe from 4 to 9? - but we obviously missed a sign. Here's what the route should have looked like:

Anyway, here's an early team photo as we stopped to admire the view:

Note that John brought along his son's dog for the walk.

It was certainly the most peaceful walk we'd ever been on - nobody else around and not a sound, other than nature itself. The views were terrific. Here's Colin and Dave admiring the view looking roughly north west from about point 7 in the map above:

The way up wasn't too tough until the very last bit, which certainly tested our legs - and my dodgy cardio system in particular - but we made it and took the obligatory team photo at the cairn at the top:

You can see the triple "paps" of Bennachie in the distance.

The walk down was a lot steeper, as evidenced by the stats view from the Adidas MiCoach app:

The first view is by elapsed time - it took us four and a half hours in total - and the second is by distance in kilometres. We climbed 562 metres (almost 1,850 feet). It took us over 3 hours to cover the first 12kms to the top, then less than an hour and a half to do the last 6 kms down to the village.

The calories consumed were soon replaced by tasty pints of Inveralmond Minstrel in the Aberdeen Arms afterwards. We spotted just one other person on the hills - just as we approached the foot, a female runner went jogging up past us.

A good tester for next month's trip to the Lake District.