Monday Park and Ride

Keith couldn't make the planned 1 pm start today - he could only do from 3 pm onwards and that was too late for me, so it was a consolidated team of 7 that left the Guide Hut, heading across the river and up to Woodlands of Durris, then back down across Park bridge and back along the Deeside Way.

Here's the team near the high point of the route:

Ian Stewart, Archie Cook, John McWhinnie, Ian Sharp, Rob Pollard, Jeb Tyrie and John Perry

If you look carefully at the above photo (click on photo and zoom in), you'll notice Rob has a slightly Darth Vader-ish look. He had earlier been educating all and sundry what the silly plastic things at the front of the helmet could do - apparently they come down over the eyes to act as a kind of sun visor. Mmm......

We had a minor detour as we crossed Park bridge - Rob figured we could get down to the fishermen's path alongside the Dee and thus avoid climbing back up to Drumoak, but the road was fenced off, so back we went.

There was another slight hesitation as we approached Myrebird - Mr. Sharp wanted to head up the hill there and loop back down through Crathes, but Mr. Pollard said no - he was too tired and it was too late in the route to add extra miles.

For a change, the scone stop was at Buchanan's. Six of us arrived there in good time, but Mr. Sharp was delayed, chatting to all and sundry near Milton. Normally, if there's anyone missing, we would wait or even go back to check they were alright, but, on this occasion, nobody could be bothered. We figured Ian had probably turned up to the Castle to put in some additional miles. We were wrong, but Ian made it safely to Buchanan's eventually, where we decided to sit out:

It had been a very pleasant afternoon, but it did cool down later and there were a few mumbles about going inside, but the threat of BGB's averted a mutiny.

Total distance covered was 34 kms in just over 2 hours, with almost 1,000 feet of climbs. Full Strava stats at https://www.strava.com/activities/272900765

John P provided the overview of the route again:

John also prepared the following interesting look at all the routes over the last 6 months:

Impressive. Perhaps the bits without any red lines will provide some inspiration for future routes?

Of course, we weren't the only active Freewheelers - Keith, of course, was planning a solo Crathes loop today and Les was out in the Algarve yesterday morning, covering a similar distance to us, albeit a bit slower and with less climbing - https://www.strava.com/activities/272256156