Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

Monday was the day we all had to catch ferries back to the mainland, but we weren't quite finished with walking yet - we still had time for a morning walk to King's Cave and back along the coast to Blackwaterfoot - minus the two Johns. JMD had grandparent duties and had to drive all the way down to the Home Counties, so he had to catch the early morning ferry, whilst JMcW opted for a round of golf at nearby Shiskine - a 12 hole course. The remaining nine of us caught the 9:15 am bus up to the start of the King's Cave walk - up through the forest and then down to the beach, where we were met by this sight in the first cave: The second cave, bizarrely, had (unlocked) iron gates on which some joker had left this: There were tunnels between the caves: Our geological nerds were waxing lyrical on some of the rock formations: Ahead of budget, we arrived at the far end of Shiskine golf course where the coastal walk turned in to a beach walk: We met up wit...

Sunday morning and time for a boat trip over to the Holy Isle - all bar John D, as dogs - and alcohol - are not permitted as it is the home of a Buddhist retreat. We drove over to Lamlash to check on the ferry times: Departure time - "12-ish"! Ferry sounds a bit grand - this was what was waiting for us: It transpired that it was another vessel that took us over there, although the one above is the one that brought us back. Our time on Holy Island was limited as the last ferry back was at 3 pm. Ken had hoped to go over the top and complete the circular walk back along the coastal trail, but it was soon apparent that there was insufficient time to complete this walk, particularly given that all the guide books warned of dangerous, precipitous paths down from the hilltop. In the end, it was a choice of a straightforward walk up the hill and back down again the same way or simply do the coastal trail out and back. It ended up an even split with 5 doing the climb and ...

Saturday was the big day when we were to tackle the biggest hill/mountain in Arran - Goatfell, which a little annoyingly, falls just short of being a Munro. Our leader had carefully checked the forecast and concluded that the likelihood was that, although the summit was currently in low cloud, this would be a better day to do it than Sunday, when the forecast visibility was even worse. We would hope that it might clear as we walked up - a vain hope as it transpired. There was yet another logistical problem with Stewart apparently taking a wrong turning and having to be redirected by phone back to the correct starting point of our walk, which, handily, was right next to Arran Brewery: The first part of the walk was fairly straight forward on good, even track and we soon arrived at a small bridge, which afforded the first opportunity for a full team photo: It was at this point, however, that Gordon had to turn back, suffering badly from a blister acquired on the previous da...

Ken reports again: "Friday Weather forecast for Friday – not great, grey, overcast, squally showers.   We hoped for some breaks in the weather and gathered at Lochranza by the estuary.   There were a few glimpses of sunshine as we set off up the well-worn track to Laggan, over the other side of the hill.   As we reached the crest, the rain started and didn’t really relent until we were nearly finished the walk.   As the bells chimed for noon, Jeb pulled out a full bottle of whisky from his rucksack and we toasted his recent 60 th birthday with a generous dram and water (au naturel).   We yomped down to the bothy at Laggan where a couple of other chaps were sheltering – suffice to say this particular des. res. requires some work and does not offer the type of lunch stop to which we became accustomed in our last trip (to the Yorkshire Dales).   Replete, we set off along the coast in search of a renowned geological site – the famous Huttons Unconformit...

September, 2018 was the 9th year of our walking holidays. 13 participants to date, 11 of whom were on this trip (Nigel and Jack the others). Our leader, Ken, has been on all of them of course (albeit missing a couple of days of the WHW in 2010) and Ian Sh has been on 8 of them, with John McW and myself (Ian St) on 7. Ken reports on the first day: "Thursday Transporting 12 people to Arran ought not to be too much of a challenge but the team made great efforts to generate complexity and confusion. Ian St was first up with a double-booking of holidays for the Thursday (not many people have so many holidays that they are in danger of overlapping).   Nigel was next up with inflamed achilles and a full cancellation on the evening before departure, necessitating the late stand-in as driver by Ken.   And finally Jeb completed his final working day before the trip at 1am in the morning only to discover he had a flat tyre which resulted in Colin making a late stand-in as driver...

Best laid plans etc. The weather behaved - much better than forecast earlier in the week - but you would have thought that 3 of us would have managed to plan and co-ordinate sufficiently well for our assault on Bennachie. Not so - first of all, I forgot the printed route plans and maps and had to dash back home again after picking John up, thus adding to our lateness in meeting up with Stewart - supposedly at 10:30 am. As for Stewart, just one week in to his retirement, it seemed the old grey cells had stopped working already. The emails said meet at the Back of Bennachie Car Park, but he went to the main car park - i.e. the front of Bennachie - and with some road closures around there, he couldn't get round to where John and I were heading in reasonable time. Allied to which, we didn't have each other's mobile phone numbers - point to remember when in Arran next week. We did eventually manage to communicate vie email and Messenger and it was agreed that John and I w...