Invercauld - Balmoral
On a beautiful October Friday afternoon, Ken, Jeb and I headed up Deeside again. The plan was for Jeb to catch the bus at Culter, me at Banchory and Ken at Crathie. Jeb's plan was altered slightly as he was hoping to take his bike with him on the bus and drop it off at the Banchory Bike Shop, but the bus driver said he couldn't take his bike, so, in the end, Jeb had to cycle to Banchory, drop his bike off and catch the 1 pm bus. This apart, the outward travel plans worked perfectly. On alighting the bus we took the narrow path down to the river where we got our first sight of the old Invercauld bridge: Looking east up the Dee: We crossed the old bridge and set out on the route Ken had planned for us south of the Dee: The first part of the walk climbs slowly upwards on good forestry track and we got some lovely views, including a fine waterfall: Our initial thoughts that the whole route might be cyclable were soon quashed as the path narrowed and briefly got muddier...