Wednesday booze cruise & others

Ken P responded to my clarion call this morning - as did Jeb, as we found out later - but he suggested we leave at the slightly earlier time of 11:30 am as the weather forecast was for some rain coming in about 3 pm.

So off the two of us trotted in bright sunshine to start with - along the Way and up through the West Gate, on to Hirn, then Flora's. Ken, quite rightly, didn't fancy cycling on the main road from there over to Garlogie, so he consulted Google Maps and took us round a previously unexplored (for me) loop that eventually took us back to the main road but near the Garlogie junction, passing the Cullerlie Stone Circle to our right, where we posed for a photo:

There was yet another breach of Freewheelers protocol in the Garlogie Inn, when we both opted for a bowl of soup. Discussing potential routes home that didn't involve retracing our steps, the possibility of a 3-stop cycle arose. It was lunchtime and we'd had a bowl of soup so our next stop could be Milton for a more traditional scones/tea/coffee break. By the time we would have had that course, it surely would be a respectable enough time to finish off with a pint - or two?

We went the same way back to Flora's but then planned to head straight down to the Deeside Way from there. Before we got anywhere near Flora's however, the skies started to darken and soon we were in the middle of what seemed to us like a blizzard, but was probably something a little short of that.

Heads down in to the wind and snow, we couldn't see a thing - our goggles/glasses were obliterated by large drops of snow. Wipers would have been useful. Ken was a bit more prepared than I - in his backpack he had a pair of waterproof trousers and he quickly donned them, but I had foolishly taken Ken's information about the weather forecast at face value - it was nowhere near 3 pm and my lower half  was soon soaked to the skin.

Arriving at the Milton, we stripped off as much as it was decent to do in public, but I didn't want to sit down and allow my soaking trousers and shorts to make further contact with my skin. Ken was calmness personified as the snow continued to fall outside:

The healing powers of a good scone and lashings of tea/coffee are amazing and soon we were ready to face the final leg home. The idea of a 3rd stop for ale had by now been ditched in favour of hot baths.

Our Strava stats show we did 41 kms with 225 m of climbing.

Elsewhere:

• Tuesday - 
• Malcolm L - Torphins - 24 kms - 273 m
• Les - Algarve - 29 kms - 154 m
• Mike - Finzean - 43 kms - 552 m