Balmoral Cairns

Good turnout of 9 for Friday's walk round the Balmoral "Cairns". Ian had done it before and decided his time could best be spent elsewhere and Nigel made a late decision to continue lopping trees with his chainsaw, but otherwise, it was a pretty full turnout of the regulars.

The logistics were a little complicated as most of us also had a Headbang to attend at Dave's later on, but, in the end, we managed fine and all (eventually) went well.

Matters got off to a slightly tricky start, however. I had printed off 13 sheets of step by step directions and also downloaded a live tracker app from ViewRanger. Both of these guided us in a clockwise direction but Dave and Steve, who had done the walk before and knew it well, decided it would be better if we went anti-clockwise, so they led us onward and I pocketed my printouts and tried to disguise my petted lip.

Some of the guide books and web sites mention 7 so-called cairns, but it seems there are more than that - some of them partially hidden up narrow tracks. They're not that difficult to spot, however, as they're fairly large and all (bar one) identical conical shapes and sizes. Stewart took a team photo at the first cairn:

Each of the cairns had a stone in the centre to explain who it was dedicated to, but some of them were so weather-worn that we couldn't quite make out the narrative:

Others were much clearer:

We got an excellent view of the castle from cairn 4:

Further on we came across a very active anthill:

There was a slight impasse when we came to a bit of a junction with signs pointing one way for the red trail and another for the green trail. An estate worker in his vehicle stopped by and asked what we were looking for? Even after several minutes discussing the options with him, there was still uncertainty as Dave and Steve were apparently intent on going in differing directions, but eventually a compromise was reached, which, ironically, meant us retracing our steps and going back up the hill we had just wandered down.

We had decided to head straight to Albert's cairn, which is by far the largest on the estate and is really a pyramid:

The architect in Gary decided to go for an artistic shot:

There's a bit of a climb up to this monument but it meant a fast downward walk back to the cars, with the armed Met police keeping an eye on our movements as we approached the back entrance to the estate.

Here's the route and the stats:

Our eventual route was fairly similar in shape to the original plan, albeit in reverse - see below. The anti-clockwise direction didn't seem to disorientate Colin too much either!

We drove back to Ballater for a swift pint (two for some) and then we all headed back down Deeside - most of us to Dave's for the Headbang, whilst Stewart drove back to Westhill, dropping John off in Banchory on the way.