Seven of us showed up on a bright afternoon. Dick passed his apologies and John McW decided to play safe, having heard about Thursday's accident-strewn outing. Algarve Man was nowhere to be seen, however - too cold for him, we suspect.
Ken P suggested the route - stay north of the river where the sun had had most chance of getting rid of the pockets of black ice. The plan was to head out to Crathes Castle and out the north end of the estate and roughly head towards the Drumoak area. Ken's original intention had been to enter Crathes by the West Gate, but Jeff, the early leader, whizzed by before anybody even noticed.
No matter - we could still turn left at Milton and go up past the castle and out the other side, where we turned right, went straight through the next crossroads and on to meet the Myrebird road, where we took a chance and turned left. John P thought he may have been up this road before with Rob and Dick, but it was a new experience for the rest of us.
Eventually, we wound our way, along slightly bumpy farm-track roads, until we arrived at the hill that takes you up and over into Drumoak - back past where we had got slightly lost last Monday, then it was the Deeside Way back home, led by a supercharged Archie, with another pit stop at Milton of Crathes again - this time they had plenty of scones. This week's team photo was taken there, using the reindeer and sleigh props they had kindly left out for us:
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| Ian Stewart, John Perry, Jeff Dickens, Rufus de Silva, Ken Page, Bob Elder, Archie Cook - & Rudolf |
Here's the aerial overview of the route, courtesy of John P:
It was a 20 mile loop - full stats here - http://www.strava.com/activities/229671144
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