Keith and Ken P had been in Aberdeen in the morning but signalled their return to Banchory by text, phone and e-mail shortly after 2 pm, so I sidled down to the Guide Hut for a 2:30 pm rendezvous with them. It was another glorious afternoon and it would have been a shame to waste it.
None of us were in an adventurous or energetic mood, but we agreed to saunter east, with an initial plan to traverse the Park Bridge. The first part along the Deeside Way to Crathes was fine. We then turned right past the St. Ternan pitches at Milton and went over the stile and down towards our current favourite spot on the bench next to the fishermen's bothy, where I tried to take a team photo in the bright sunlight:
That didn't work very well, did it? It was very hot and sunny - the thermometer on the shady side of the fishermen's bothy only read 19C at this point, but it felt hotter:
From there, we travelled along the riverside, under the Crathes bridge and, rather than turn back up to the Deeside Way, we decided to explore a bit further on. The Holy Grail is to find a way along the riverside all the way to Park Bridge. Previous efforts had failed, the most recent of which was when Dick, Keith and I tried earlier this month. On that occasion, we were thwarted by what I described at the time as a required 6 foot leap over the burn. Today, we came to the end of the Land Rover tracks along the river and stopped. I parked my bike and walked along a narrow path for a couple of hundred yards until I came to the burn again. This time, from the other (western) side, the traverse over the burn looked much shorter and I would have had a go, but when I walked back to where Keith and Ken were waiting, they weren't very keen, so we just headed back towards the Crathes bridge and up towards the Deeside Way again.
In short, it is feasible, but we would need to walk the bikes along a narrow footpath for a bit, then traverse the burn. It would take a few of us to perhaps lift some stones from the riverbank and put them in strategic places to form a crossing over the burn. I know Dick would be keen, but how many others?
Anyway,back to this afternoon. Time was marching on and we decided to stay north of the river and go up the Myrebird hill and back through Crathes estate, down towards the West Gate. From there, we headed towards the brewery, where I popped in for a brief chat with the brewer, Neil, and then we were off to the Legion.
It was such a glorious day that we sat outside:
Eventually, we were joined by Archie and (non-cyclist) Jas and we sat there putting the world to rights until the sun went down:
My Strava stats show a total distance covered of 32 kms but I had completed two circuits of Burnett Park beforehand, so the afternoon ride was probably about 28 kms - https://www.strava.com/activities/403587701
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