Tap o' Noth
Six of us turned up yesterday for just our 3rd walk this year - appropriately after 4 months of lockdown, it was the shortest in overall distance but it involved the most climbing: Stewart, Ken, Nigel, Jeb, Dave and I - plus Ruby - drove separately over to Rhynie and squeezed in to the small car park at the official start of the walk up to the ancient hill-fort. In a taste of what was to come for me, there were flies everywhere. The official walk is a straight up and down one of about 3 miles, but we chose to take a circular route, approaching the top from the east of the hill, which increased the distance by about one third. We turned off route slightly too early and had to wade through classic tic territory before we found our way back to the path we had intended to travel. As we rose higher, I fully expected the flies to disappear but they stuck closely to me all the way to the top, whilst nobody else seemed to be bothered by them. The final climb was relatively steep, al...