2019 Walk 10 - Keiloch Crag

One casualty and one call-off meant just 5 of us took part in our 10th monthly walk of 2019 yesterday - Dave picked up Jeb - and then Ruby - and Andy drove Colin and I down to the meeting point at the walkers' car park on the Invercauld estate.

I had the directions and instructions but failed at the first hurdle by accidentally taking the clockwise route - mistake number one.

The outward path through the estate was familiar to Dave as it was the same route the Freewheelers had gone on when cycling out to Linn o' Dee. As we came almost level with Invercauld House and the large sculptures in their grounds, we took a right turn and zig-zagged a bit as we climbed the hill. Despite the mists and grey skies above, we still had some pretty good views up the valleys:

Given the benefit of hindsight, we now realise we went too far north up the hill and should have made a right turn back a bit sooner than we actually did. Up to now, it had been fairly easy to follow the printed map - particularly as there were also waymarkers and direction signs to guide us, but eventually Dave and I got a little concerned that the path we were on didn't seem to correspond with the route map. Dave consulted OS Maps on his phone, whilst I loaded up the live Viewranger tracker. Unfortunately, I was also running Strava on my phone and this caused the phone to die within minutes.

Time was marching on so we decided to do likewise - after all, we were now on a downhill eastwards track - surely this would lead us back OK - and it did. Before we got back to the cars, however, there was a burn to cross:

Steady does it, Jeb!

Come on Andy

This sign appeared to have been dumped - not likely to be any commercial hives out here:

Nearing the car park, I spotted a convenient stand for the camera, so it was time to take a team photo:

Where's Ruby?

When we did finally make it back to the car park, Dave's and Andy's were the only 2 cars remaining as the light was diminishing:

Dave took Ruby home and Andy drove me, Colin and Jeb over to the Fife Arms, Braemar for a couple of (strong) Cairngorm beers, before heading back to Ballater to meet up with Nigel and Ian who had been knocking the beers back for a couple of hours, having caught an earlier than anticipated bus. Soon Dave, too, arrived by bus and all 7 of us sat by the fire in the Barrel lounge, swilling some fine Windswept ales - all bar Andy, who was having a dry day:

It had been an entertaining afternoon and we had managed to completely dodge the heavy rain back in Banchory. The planned walk was a short one as we knew we only had a maximum of 2 hours of daylight to complete the 5 kms, but our little detour had upped this to 8 kms which had added a little bit of stress. This is what we should have done - staying south of Craig Leek:

This, however, was what we actually did - going north of Craig Leek:

Quite a detour, eh? But another great day out. Ian, Nigel and Dave hopped on the bus., whilst Andy drove me, Colin and Jeb back to Banchory. Another faux pas was when I went in to the boot of Andy's car to pick up my boots, not realising they were Jeb's! All sorted today when Jeb drove out to Banchory and we swapped boots.