Plan was to go up to Aberdeen today but we've had more than enough retail therapy so decided to give the granite city a miss and head inland to the Cairngorm National Park.
But first things first, it's Sunday, and Sunday means Car Boot. A quick trip into Stonehaven before breakfast to inspect a dozen motley stalls in the market square and return empty handed to our Shredded Wheat. Well, at least the walk was a bracing start to the day!
Proper Scotland. At last! A main A road which is single track with passing places, pine forest, snow still on the mountain tops, mountain pass roads so high that snow was in the verges. Real Scotland.
The day started on the road to Ballater, heading towards Braemar, two places associated strongly with Queen Victoria. Just after Ballater we took the road leading to The Lecht, at 644m (2113') the second highest pass in Scotland. Stunning scenery, ski lifts at the summit of The Lecht but really only enough snow for snowmen and snowball fights. We fancied camping at Tomintoul and visiting their distillery but this cold, uncertain weather is not conducive to chancing it in Scotland's highest village. It looks like snow is a-coming in and there's a serious chance of getting stuck here for a couple of days (not that that would present any problem)
Dropping down into Speyside we detoured off to the RSPB site at Loch Garten in search of osprey. A lovely site in a pine forest with cameras, binoculars and scopes set up on the Osprey nest atop a tree 100m or so away. Nothing can be seen moving in the nest but the female is sat on a low tree branch not too many metres away from it. Not easy to spot at first but once found she's just about close enough to watch comfoortably with my own bins. A first for us and real quite exciting, although an aerial dispaly would have been nice. I suspect we wouldn't have been welcomed visitors for too long had I gone outside and tried to rouse her into the air (and I also suspect I wouldn't have got near as the nest site is probably subject to pretty strict security). The site also had some video footage of the rare Capercallies that can occassionally be found in the nearby woodland. Huge birds but rare and shy meaning sitings are few indeed. No red squirrel or crested tit sightings for us either though. But the osprey will do.
Back up the Spey valley where we meet The Malt Whisky Trail and follow it to our campsite at Aberlour. About a mile across the river The Macallan distillery turns barley and Spey water into liquid gold. A mile down the road the Aberlour distillery does similar, as does Glenfiddich about 4 miles away, nestling next to its neighbour The Balvenie. The same for mile distance to the north two more neighbours Glenrothes and Glen Grant also breathe the life into the water of life.
Time for the first dram of our trip now, perhaps.
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