Sgor Buidhe

Another Friday afternoon, another trip down to Ballater for a hill-walk. This time, Dave had 2 of his former squash partners from Reading - Harry and Matt - up to visit him and they joined John, Colin and I to do the Sgor Buidhe circuit.

It transpired that this walk was almost identical to the Creagan Riabhach walk we had done 4 weeks' previously - at least until we reached the start of the descent of the previous walk. The only difference was that our descent was on the west side of the woods this time, rather than the east - and this brought us out a bit further along the Pass of Ballater. We also managed to find a much easier way down the slope to the old railway line, so, all in all, a slightly better route. the only problem we had was that the battery ran out on my phone so the Strava stats were not quite complete as you'll see from this extract:

When I got home and recharged the battery, Strava woke up again, but, interestingly the distance stats stopped when the battery went - not at the end of the red line above in Banchory! The distance recorded up to that point of 11.5 kms should at least have been the 13 kms that we did on the previous walk.

Enough of the stats, now for the photographs:

The initial climb

Harry admires the view

It's too hot for John

Admiring the view again

John and Dave at the little white boulder that marks the high point

Harry again takes in the view

Matt photographs the view

Marching along the old railway line

Matt dips his toes in the Dee

Team at our favourite little beach. Lens not quite wide enough to get Dave in too.

After walking right round the golf course, we were ready for some ale. First stop was the Alexandra for a couple of pints of Cairngorm beers, before moving round to the Barrel Bar at the Glenaden Hotel for some Windswept and Burnside beers. Soon the curry was calling and off we went to India on the Green again for another fine meal.

Another fine day out - I'm sure this won't be the last time we take a trip up Deeside for a walk, some beers and a meal.