Walks in the Ballochbuie Forest

I've been trying to increase my walking days out in an attempt to get a bit fitter for the TGO Challenge which is now not very many weeks away (eeeek!). There's been some gorgeous weather too, which is a bonus!

If I leave the house here I can be over on the Balmoral Estate in about 10 minutes where there are forest tracks, moorland paths and some spectacular walks to put together.

 

{Approaching the Gelder Burn}

I had never explored the forest towards Braemar except for using the track closest to the river and the Glen Gelder access to the bothy so I thought it was time to remedy that. A visit to the Garbh Allt Falls was the first project, it takes me across the moorland and into the Ballochbuie Forest.

{Looking into the water from the bridge over the Gelder Burn}

The track was a bit dusty and stony but I was soon at the hut where I had some soup and a humous pitta (yum!) before setting off on the little narrow path through the heather. It was a bit boggy in places and there were some accidental detours into rather deep peaty pools.

{The hut just before the Feith an Laoigh path}

Making sure I took the right track I soon found myself fairly high up in the Forest looking down on the big pine trees. The Ballochbuie Forest was bought in 1878 by Queen Victoria to save it from being felled for timber. There are some of the oldest Scots Pine trees in the country here.

{A fine new bridge to cross the Allt Lochan nan Eun}

Once over the bridge the landscape changed, becoming more managed looking. After another, but much older, bridge, the track became a forest road, wide enough for landrovers. I could hear the Falls before I reached them. There's a Victorian metal bridge over the top of them, but by now I was concerned to get back to the road as I had planned to catch the bus home. I took a photo but didn't venture any nearer.

{Garbh Allt Falls through the trees}

{The White Bridge}

I was pleased to reach the White Bridge crossing the Dee but then really disappointed to find the door at the other side of the bridge was firmly locked. With no chance of climbing over (rather high and spiky) I had to turn round and walk further on to the Invercauld Bridge. Fortunately there was still time to catch the bus home.

This walk was measured by Viewranger as 17.7 km.

{Invercauld Bridge}



I was back at the bridge a couple of days later, Him Indoors having dropped me off on his way to Edinburgh. The plan was to walk up through the Forest and then climb over An Slugan and drop down past Loch Phadruig.

This high part of the Ballochbuie was nothing short of spectacular. It was very calm and quiet among the trees and I caught sight of several roe deer feeding together. My attempt at a photo was not very successful - nice trees, but the deer swiftly ran away.

{The Ballochbuie Forest}

The track was easy walking but once I arrived at the fishing hut I knew I would have to strike out across the heather to climb up to the bealach. Although it was a bit wet in places there was a sort of path to follow some of the time.

{Fishing hut}

The ground was very wet around the Loch and took some careful walking so as not to fall into the peaty water. Once at the edge of the loch I had my sandwiches and enjoyed the peaceful setting. Unlike mountain lakes in the Alps there was no-one else around.

{Loch Phadruig}

After lunch it was more heather and bog hopping to drop down to the Loch Callater track and then back to Braemar. Fortunately it was a dry day, I think this would be a miserable descent in the rain!

{Waterfall}

Viewranger stats for this walk (including the slog back to Braemar on the tarmac) were 15 kms and 519 m of ascent.

{Beautiful, mature Scots Pine}



I'm having a rant............

about irresponsible wild campers!

I was walking from Auchallater back to Braemar after a spectacularly good walk up to Loch Phadruig. I'll post a report on this walk later - but for now I'm just horrified at what I saw!

The area beside the river on the A93 just out of Braemar on the way to Glenshee has been used as long as I can remember for wild camping. Not generally by backpackers but more often by car campers and motor caravans. I'm sure the litter was left by only a minority of these but it makes quite a big impact on the area.

I had only just been reading about the recent camping ban beside Loch Lomond and wondering how long it would be before other areas of Scotland were included. The right to responsible wild camping is enshrined in the Scottish Access Laws. It would be terrible if these rights were taken away because of the actions of a selfish minority.

The key to this is obviously the word 'responsible' and leaving any trace of your stay is contrary to this.

{Floating in the ditch....}

{A pile of rubbish}

Some of the rubbish I saw was too dreadful to describe but as you can see from the photos there was also more mundane stuff left behind. All along the river bank and in the water itself were plastic bottles, bags, tubs, boxes, and several old camping chairs.

Butterflies and barmy sheep......

Louise has already posted a fine description of our walk together yesterday but I thought I'd add a few photos and a comment or two.

We parked beside the Cromdale Outdoor Centre which I vaguely remembered staying at once for a Ski Leader Refresher course in the dim and distant past.

{Louise - modelling her smart Tilley hat}

After we left the road and started to climb through the forest along the Speyside Way we spotted quite a number of butterflies. Here's a beautiful Peacock settled on some grassland - I couldn't get any closer without it fluttering off and landing somewhere else.

{Peacock butterfly resting briefly}

Cromdale Station lovingly restored made an interesting site - at this point the Speyside Way uses the route of the old railway track and makes for pleasant, if flat, walking.

{The old station platform at Cromdale}

There were quite a few low(ish) fences to climb over along the way. Here the lovely Louise demonstrates how to do this with a smile.

{Carefully avoiding the barbed wire}

Neither of us took photos of the barmy, charging sheep (3 in all). You'll have to imagine them for yourself.

Viewranger stats for the walk are recorded as:- distance 20.6 kms, ascent 312 m, descent 313 m (don't ask me what happened there!).

To read Louise's account of the walk, go to her blog and look for  'Another fine day'.

First things...............

I've been meaning to post for the past few days but my computer has been mis-behaving and wouldn't load my photos from the sd card - until this morning............

Last Sunday was our first day back at home after the 'progress' up through England into Scotland, visiting relatives, going to a lovely birthday party, then the Outdoor Pursuits Show in Edinburgh, and finally, after a trip to Tesco's in Blairgowrie, arriving home on Saturday evening.

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny April day, so I couldn't resist the temptation to go for a quick walk. There's nothing to beat the route up to the pyramid on Balmoral Estate - so I set off after lunch having failed to persuade Him Indoors to come with me (well, there was football on the tele!)

I walked into Glen Gelder to investigate the fence I had spotted during the winter (but couldn't get up to in the deep snow. (click here). Actually it appears to be an enclosure and I noted on my GPS that there was only one gate I could see. The fence runs more or less parallel to the Gelder Burn alongside the landrover track. However, as I discovered on a subsequent walk on Tuesday, it doesn't go very far into the Glen and should cause no problems if you're walking over to the bothy.

{Looking along the fence towards Lochnagar}

{Looking back towards the forest - the gate at NO 25410 92845}

I turned back and climbed the hill up to the pyramid. Queen Victoria had this built in memory of Prince Albert. I had a neighbour here once who told me confidentially that the present Queen rides round this monument on Mid-summer's Eve, naked, to retain her powers.

{Prince Albert's Cairn}

No sign of anyone around as I walked on down the other side of the hill towards another monument - this time Princess Beatrice's cairn.

{Princess Beatrice's Cairn}

Obviously Spring is here. I saw large masses of frog spawn in the ditches and the daffodils in the garden are blooming.

{Frog spawn in a ditch}

This is a great little walk to blow away cobwebs and stretch the legs.

{Daffodils in my garden}

*There should be photos to go with the text as I said at the top - unfortunately now they won't upload to the blog - I'll try later (when the Gremlins are sleeping....shsh)

Success!!!