Potarch - Aboyne 6 Nov 20

The original plan for yesterday's walk was to take the Deeside Way from Potarch to Banchory, but Dave came up with an alternative route on the south side of the river, so 5 of us took our courage in both hands and set out on Dave's Magical Mystery Tour. There was an initial climb over the hill towards Ballogie, during which we encountered this dead tree, teeming with the "flying saucer" funghi:

The trig point at the top gave us an opportunity for our team photo:

Out of the woods, but mostly hidden from view, we came across this gravestone:

Eventually, just past Birse church and graveyard, we crossed the South Deeside road and took a trail down towards Birse fishing lodge and our first sight of River Dee. It was an easy walk until we had to scramble a bit at the end of the trail to get back to the road again:

Finally crossing the bridge over to the north side of the Dee, we arrived at our chosen destination - the Boat Inn. Disappointingly - but perhaps just as well - the 4.8% cask Schiehallion was finished, so we had to settle for the somewhat safer 3.6% Greene King IPA. We had two new grandfathers in our group, so we were obliged to imbibe drams. Dave had just become grandfather to twins, so naturally the Macallans had to be doubles. Ken's new family arrival was solo, but he decided to double up with the Balvenie anyway:

The sun was going down, as was the temperature, but one of the regulars came over to our table and pressed a button on the wall which magically turned on some overhead infrared heaters - lovely. The drink was going down far too easily so we gave up the option of catching the earlier 16:28 bus and decided to stick around for the next one an hour later. The temperature dropped further but Jeb found another solution when he emerged from inside the pub with 5 blankets:

Another magical Friday afternoon. The important stats were 3 pints and two double drams each, and here's the other ones: