Training Walk - Thursday 21st March 2013

My last training walk !!

I left Orkney last night on the ferry, it was a fairly good crossing but I don't think I slept all that soundly in the bunk and I woke up with a stonking headache and couldn't face any breakfast. I don't suppose it helped that my last liquid intake was a mug of tea at 5 o'clock.

The ferry docked at 07:00 but as I was going to Tiso's to get a couple more T-shirts and it didn't open until 09:00 I stayed on board until 08:45.

After making my purchases I made my way to Duthie Park for the start of the Deeside Way, I was going to take this all the way to Banchory to spend the weekend with Fiona & family.

I was carrying what would be my general rucsac weight from now on, full kit with food & water for breakfast & lunch, I expect there will plenty of opportunity to pick up food for the evening meal at the end of the day, at least until I get to the remote parts of Scotland.

The weather was very cold, cloudy with occasional snow flurries on a bitter east wind, which, thankfully, was more or less behind me.

The Deeside Way is along the route of the old railway line so it it was flat, straight and tarmac'd. I left Duthie Park at 09:50 and after a while the sun came out, it looked like it might be a reasonable day so when I got to the next bench I de-clothed down to my shorts, T-shirt and just a light windproof jacket.

There were plenty of dog walkers on the path, all in full waterproof gear and gloves, I didn't need to look at them to feel cold, there was a little bit of heat in the sun but it kept disappearing behind clouds and then it was freezing.

The Way only came near to the River Dee a couple of times and the walk was fairly monotonous.

I still had my headache but felt I should eat something so I stopped for lunch at 1 o'clock at the first interesting section so far.

There was a bench by a Duck pond just at Drumoak so I had a 20 minute break and watched the wildlife under the gaze of a face carved into an old tree stump.

I submitted to the cold and put my waterproof jacket back on, and some gloves but left my legs exposed.

I normally wear 2 pair of hikng socks with my boots but found that after 8 miles or so my feet were getting hot and swelling just enough to feel pinched in the boots so I was trying out only wearing 1 pair. These socks were thin but with reinforcing on the friction points and were supposed to dissipate the heat much better, well, so far so good, the only drawback was that I was ending up with small stones finding their way into the boots so I was having to keep stopping to shake them out (the tarmac had given way to a gravel path).

There was a visitor centre at Milton of Crathes to do with the Royal Deeside Railway but I didn't stop to investingate other than take a photo of the 'Car'.

I left the path a short while later to come up onto the main just on the east edge of Banchory and found a path through the woods which took me right onto Fiona's road.

It was half past three and there was nobody home so I retrieved the key from under the wheelie bin, made a drink of tea then had a shower. Fiona had just been away picking Andrew up from school.

It was 18 miles today taking me 5 hours 40 mins, including shopping & lunch break.