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With the sun shining in the bedroom window and a fair forecast, it seemed a shame to waste a good day,
Gave GordonC a text to see if he was available. He'd just come back from a 6mile bike ride so was warmed up and ready to rock.
I, on the other hand scrambled through the rest o ma breakfast and staggered out into the light !
Twas a pleasant drive to the starting point on the A97, just past the Glenbuchat & castle road ends.
Several cars had parked here previously, to ascend Ben Newe up the side of the forest in more or less in a straight line.
There was a wee space between the dyke and the forestry fence that the cattle had trampled down conveniently. We walked up this way, although there was also easy-ish walking up the margins of the forest where cattle had been grazing and had trampling the ground a bit.
- Looking up the forestry track towards the summit of Ben Newe
- Looking down the forest margin track
A forestry track merges from the left about a third of the way up.
Near here we put up a couple of Roe deer who hopped off round the flank of the hill, with white bums bobbing . We walked up this track to where a fence headed directly up towards the summit. It looked fairly rough beside the fence, so we kept on the track for a few more metres then headed up through the trees. At the top of the trees it was a bit heathery and a wee bit of a pull up the last steep bit ( at least for me).
As I breasted the steep ground, I spotted GordonC chatting to three folk at the trig point. Seems they had ascended from the west side, for a change, as one of them, Mark - ( unless he was wearing someone elses fleece) lived at the Mains of Glenbuchat farm beside the castle on the E side.
They had a young border collie and a black setter - lovely looking dogs.
Had a nice chat about what was currently happening in Glenbuchat with young Mark.
Stayed for a wee while identifying the surrounding hills, noting that Ben Avon with it's warty top had plenty of snow on top.
We could just see the Buck o the Cabrach keekin' out behind the Glenbuchat hills on the other side of the glen.
- Glenbuchat and the Buck o the Cabrach from the top of Ben Newe
- GordonB - looking West to the high Cairngorms
- Looking over to Bennachie from the top of Ben Newe
We avoided the top heathery bit on the way down by taking the path down to the track that comes over from Hill of Greenstile. ( On the way up, If we'd continued round the corner and down the track a little further, we would've seen the marker post indicating the way up up through the trees to the top. Hey ho - more learnings after the fact !
We walked down through the trees at the edge of the forest, obviating the necessity to cross a couple of fences near the road.
As we'd made good time, we stopped in Alford for a coffee, at the place that used to be an up-market Cafe, which is now a kids play centre, so we sat outside to escape the noise. Luckily it was still above 10 C and quite pleasant.
An altogether grand wee Sunday stroll.
PS. They're all GordonC photies as I still haven't been able to download any pics from my new phone - Useless git !
