Today was marked by a strong and consistent wind throughout most of the day, which the photographs don’t even begin to do justice! We started off with a cycle in from the car park in Meikle Inverey until the track petered out into boggy trail. The sun was shining and visibility was super, which went a little way toward helping us enjoy the blustery day.
These grassy slopes are generally at an angle to make walking not too difficult, but without any shelter from the wind it wasn’t as easy as the pictures suggest. We had a few opportunities to duck down against a rock or step of the hill, which we did with a sigh of relief for the few minutes of a reprieve from the gusts. Along the way we were aware of the shots of the stalkers, who we had seen in their Landrovers as we had cycled in. Andy donned his high-vis vest to minimise any risk that we would be confused for deer, as if Jamie’s lack of speed or grace made that in any doubt! We did see huge groups of deer on a few occasions and worried that they would associate us with the stalkers – Jamie tried to shout out that she’s vegetarian but they didn’t seem to understand and ran away! |
On the cycle back the 8km track Andy took a quick detour to check out The Colonel’s Bed, an area of gorge through which the river flows and that was said to be the refuge of a 17th Century colonel who was outlawed for murdering a laird and who survived because his love brought him food each day. Andy took a few pictures while Jamie took a standing nap leaning against her bike.
Unfortunately, during that time a little bug decided to bite Jamie beside her eye; by the time we were back at the car some impressive swelling had nearly swollen her eye closed – quite impressive for a tiny flier. We waited for about 20 minutes to make sure it wasn’t getting worse, then headed to the Linn of Dee car park for the night – another favourite due to the composting toilets nearby!