Cambus o' May - Aboyne

Another well attended walk on yet another beautiful Deeside day yesterday included the first appearance for a while of Gary Grant (albeit only for the latter part of the walk from Burn o' Vat back to Aboyne). It was also our leader, Ken's first outing of the year, and he, being the only non-bus pass holder on yesterday's walk, arranged for Bev to drop him off at our start point at the Cambus o' May trails. The rest of us - Ian, Colin, Jeb, Nigel and I - all caught the 201 from Banchory.

Whenever Jeb joins our walks, it's becoming traditional that he has to find a sandwich shop before he starts the walk. He was in luck yesterday as there was somewhere to oblige him adjacent to our start point - albeit it seemed to take them a while to make up his sandwich. We decided on a mini team photo to pass the time whilst the rest of us waited:

It's still winter - although you would never have known it yesterday - so the plan was to avoid the higher slopes in case of bad weather. The only criteria were that the walk had to be on a bus route and end at a pub. This one ticked both boxes. The only ever so slight climb was at the start of the forest walks - the rest was flat all the way back to the Boat Inn, Aboyne. We soon got to the viewpoint overlooking Loch Kinord where it was time for another team photo - this time with 6 of us:

Nigel reckoned the view from here over towards Loch Kinord was the finest of the day:

Stopping only for a slight detour to view the Burn o' Vat, we were soon down at the visitor centre where Gary and Mel awaited us - sunning themselves on their deckchairs:

Now it was time for another team photo - 7 of us this time:

The decision was made to take the trail south of Loch Kinord and we had promised ourselves a dram break - courtesy of Nigel - at the water's edge. But first, yet another team photo:

An adjacent building had a cross on it - an old chapel?:

Onwards to Dinnet, where, by a narrow majority, we voted to have a scone stop at the Loch Kinord Hotel. It was a very nice cosy little lounge and, yes, they could do scones for us - although they only had plain ones. When they arrived they were the largest ones we'd ever seen - and this was duly reflected in the bill, which amounted to a record £6.45 per head for tea and a scone with cream and jam. Not many tips were left - and most of us had to take a doggy bag home with half the scone.

From there, it was just straight back along the Deeside Way to Aboyne where we did a slight detour down Rhu-Na-Haven road and down to the riverbank trail that eventually led us to our destination - the Boat Inn. On the way here, we had spotted a local cyclist complete with standard gilet jaune - it turned out to be Malcolm Grigor, trying to get some secret practice in before re-joining the B team. We invited him to join us at the Boat - not a difficult decision for the Boat's nearest neighbour. So it was that our numbers had now swelled to 8 for some beers and interesting chat.

We had arrived at the Boat just before 5 pm and caught the 7:18 pm bus back, so we were all home by about 8 pm. Another splendid day - and probably much better for us than the usual Friday night midnight job.

Here's the stats: