Crathie - Invercauld

A couple of late changes to personnel and an incident at Drum that caused the bus to bypass Jeb, Vicky and Ossie, but otherwise 6 of us made it to Crathie just 15 minutes later than originally planned. This made the schedule a little tighter as we had to make sure we would get to Invercauld, ideally before 6 pm, but definitely no later than 6:30 pm. First we had to cross the Dee over the old pedestrian bridge at Balmoral:

The start of this walk, which was the one Ken, Jeb and I did last year - only in reverse this time - was past the Balmoral Cairns, after which it opens out along good landrover tracks with fine views of Lochnagar:

We were conscious that we needed to keep the pace up, but we stopped once, briefly, at a small hut for a quick snack and drink. At this point, we turned off the main track and made our way through a reasonably well defined but fairly narrow path that occasionally was a little overgrown. The climb here was very gradual but just after reaching the high point, Ken got an urgent call from Bev - calamity at home - the power had apparently gone. The phone signal wasn't too strong sp Ken had to find and stay at a location where he could try and talk Bev through what she needed to do. This meant an unplanned delay but even when we got going again, poor Ken was constantly besieged by calls and photos of the fuse box etc. Ossie was by now off the leash and bounded enthusiastically through the heather and ferns, occasionally returning to our path, almost knocking us down! There were a couple of water crossings using stepping stones but we bypassed the main waterfall feature as we kept one eye on the time. Having failed with the first team photo, I had another attempt on a bridge over the water, but I'm afriad my old camera let me down a bit again:

We made it safely to Invercauld, across the old military bridge, for the earlier bus with just 6 or 7 minutes to spare. At this stage, Ken was thinking that he would have to bypass the meal and beers and go straight home to solve the apparent power crisis, but while on the bus, the matter was finally resolved - it was the new Sky Q box that was causing the problem, so Ken was now free to join us. In Ballater, we headed straight to the Alexandra, where Ken had booked a table for 6. The next issue was the fact that dogs weren't allowed in, so we sat outside for a couple of pints and went to order food only to discover that they didn't serve food outdoors. Jeb and Vicky took the decision to go across to the Barrel Bar at the Glenaden whilst the remaining 4 of us took the table indoors at the Alexandra that Ken had pre-ordered. After eating, we too walked over to the Barrel to join Jeb and Vicky again. Another excellent day out in fine conditions. Here's the route and the stats: