Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

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 p...

Match report and photos from Steve. Stats from Strava (Jeb's): "The forecast of sunny skies invited a high level walk but with strong winds and the chance of showers Colin, Steve, Jeb and dog decided a lower level walk amongst the trees would be more appropriate. Midday bus to Aboyne, up the Fungle and around Craigendinnie towards Black Craig giving stunning panorama views of the Grampians. Unfortunately the OS map marked path back in the direction of Bridge O’Ess was non-existent so after a short walk along a dried burn we ended up yomping across deep heather for 30 mins+ to link with another track. Ozzie the dog enjoyed it! Back to the Boat Inn where we enjoyed some pints of Cairngorm IPA/Stag – both beers in brilliant condition and tasty!! A very satisfying end to the walk prior to catching the bus homeward through the now increasingly heavy showers"