Marywell - Aboyne via Carn Ferg & the Fungle

The fine weather gave us our best ever attendance for a monthly walk yesterday - 8 of us made it in the end. Nigel and John weren't available but Steve made his debut and Jeb decided to take an afternoon off work to join us - for the first time since the Yorkshire Dales holiday last year. Even our leader, Ken, joined us for the first time since walk 10 of 2017.

Dave had hatched a cunning plot - the Banchorians should catch the 13:52 bus out to Potarch, where Dave would meet us in his car and shuttle us up to the red telephone box at Marywell where Ken would be waiting for us at the start of the walk. It was a tight budget - the walk was estimated to take three and a half hours and we knew we would only have limited time in the Boat Inn, Aboyne as we had to catch the 20:12 bus home. Things got off to a bad start when we discovered that the 13:52, of all buses, had to be the one that goes up to Glen o' Dee Hospital, so we were a few minutes late in starting the walk.

Consequently, the pace was fairly brisk - the prospect of missing a round of ales kept everyone on their toes. The start of the walk was a gentle incline upwards on mostly tarmac'd roads. When we did finally turn off to head up Carn Ferg, we were grateful the conditions were dry as the route upwards had been heavily carved up by tractor tyres. The first team photo came about halfway up:

Slightly disappointingly, only 3 of us wearing shorts.

As we climbed the views of Deeside and beyond got better and better - especially at the top, which afforded us a wonderful 360 degree panorama:

After sheltering from the breeze whilst we snacked at the Cairn, we then faced the descent, which was a little more tricky - we either ignored or failed to find the proper path and basically just headed straight down, clambering through the heather until we got to the Fungle sign to Aboyne:

The Fungle path is very narrow - single file only - and it soon turned out to be almost a bit of a river, which we had to skirt around from time to time. The first signs of civilisation also brought an improvement in the trail and we came across some stones, inscribed with "Rest & Be Thankful", dated 1809, when we're sure there must have been a lovely view before the tall forest grew:

Before too much longer we arrived at the South Deeside Road, just a couple of hundred yards from the bridge - the Boat Inn was now in sight!

The choice of beers was much better than the last time we'd been there a few weeks ago. Dave had booked us a table in the front lounge, where another team photo was taken:

Some of the drinks were served in what others described as "girly glasses":

For most of us, one course was enough, but Jeb went for the exotic pudding:

Our walk was 14 kms with 418 m of climbing. Walking time was just over 3 hours, but the elapsed time was closer to 3.5 hours, meaning we arrived at our destination only a little after 6 pm.:

We made the return bus in good time, but poor Dave, our organiser for the day, had to get off the bus before it turned up to Torphins and then had another 2 miles to walk home! The next bus wasn't really an option as it detoured through Tarland!

Grand day out - many thanks to Dave for his organisation, shuttling bodies between Potarch and Marywell, and still having to hike 2 miles home and then go and pick his car up this morning!