Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

What a great day out! Plan B had to come in to operation yesterday as the orginal idea to walk up Glen Dye was thwarted by the closure of the Cairn o' Mount road. After multiple emails were exchanged before the event, five of us finally settled on travelling down to Ballater by bus on what promised to be another hot day. We alighted at the start of the Pass of Ballater and walked to the "car park" for the official start of the published walk, which was mostly on good quality Land Rover track. We were grateful for the shade provided by the trees on the initial climb up: We were already looking forward to the 4 pubs we planned to slake our thirst in after the walk The route instructions were very detailed and we had no misadventures this time - unlike our last adventure up Mortlich. There was a brief disagreement when it came to the one option on the route to take the short walk up to the aerial tower, from where we were told there were good views of the...

After much debate, the planned Aberdeen trip was postponed and we opted to take on a Deeside hill instead. There were 5 of us - Dave, who had just stepped off an overnight flight from South Africa, Nigel, Colin, John and myself. John had dug out his old 25 Deeside Walks book and had suggested Mortlich. An alternative of Potarch to Aboyne via Falls of Dess was also briefly mooted, but equally quickly dismissed - especially once Nigel had bought a return bus ticket to Aboyne! Dave joined us on the bus at Potarch and soon we were in Aboyne and on the walk by 1.20 pm. We started by walking back up the Deeside Way in a north-easterly direction until we met the turn-off point near Aboyne Loch golf course. So far, so good. Once we started having options - forks and junctions on the track - that's when things started to go a bit pear-shaped. This was the first decision point -  Indecision reigns - Dave consults his OS map - Eventually, the others followed me up the t...