Corgarff - Glen Gairn - Loch Builg - Glen Builg - Glen Avon - Strathdon

A couple of days piece and quiet in the eastern cairngorms was the plan, I awoke at home to rather un Scottish April weather. After asking about, the general concensus seemed to be that it was indeed the sun.... ach well I wasnt going to let a we bit of sun stop me, bergan packed, porridge consumed and we are off. It took about an hour and a half to drive up the length of the river Don to Historic Scotlands Corgarff Castle car park, a quick pit stop on route at an inverurie supermarket ensured I wouldn't starve to death.

The route preview on viewranger was 21.8, actual was 23.2

I parked up in a busy wee car park below the castle and headed off south over carn mor (606), carn meadhonach (630), Camock hill (694) and Tom a Chatha before descending down into Glen Gairn.

Came across this shelter on the south side of Camock hill

 It was an ideal spot for sitting in the sun with a peperami and doing a bit of mountain spotting

South to Lochnagar with my planned route along the river Gairn in the centre. 

 It was like an ice bath, to be expected from snow melt I suppose, but so refreshing, a spot of Gehwol and it was like having new feet (only lasted for about 5 miles though),  

 Nice shiny head,  it's April, who needs sun screen........... more to follow on that.

 You come over a rise quite confident your at least 20 plus miles as the craw flies from the nearest railway line and there's a railway bridge

 Yup, that looks like a railway bridge to me

 And just along the track another wee bridge

 And another,  think i clocked 8 or 9 throughout the wander

 The Scarp with a view, a lovely April evening at the head of Loch Builg,  fairly puffed out after quite a long day, 14 miles and a decent accent, seeen more grouse than you can shake a stick at,  a dozen or so white hares, a few rabbits, a few english eagles, two large herds of Red deer and two magnificent huge real eagles.

 But.....before bed its supper time, not bloody steak again!!!!  at least I remembered the colmans mustard this time (and the rolls weren't squashed flat either)

 Day two, view from the scarp door, seriously this is Scotland in April,  loch Builg looking stunning

 A bit random, but came across this sign at the other end of the loch, very informative tbh, funnily enough I had wondered about a small fenced off area I had seen just before it, I had talked myself into believing it was a paddock for stalking ponies, doh. Indeed I came across another sign a bit further on, it was all about stalking and it was again very informative, asking walkers to adhere to certain simple requests during the season.  Kudos really must go to glenavon estate for their outstanding can do attitude, hopefully walkers reciprocate. 

River crossing while trying to take a picture and carry a brew, not the wisest move of the day so far.  Excuse the daft hat, as mentioned earlier, daftie misjudged the sun the previous day and needed to keep covered up today, to hot for my beanie, so buff it was, no one sees you up here anyway............. 

The big hoose in glen Avon, Inchrory house, it was stunning,  the grounds were stunning, the setting was stunning and loads of regeneration and protection of the woodlands round about, pretty sure I saw a blackcock/capercaillie here, but it was away before I got a good look.

Pretending to be a stone

Final 20 minute boots off stop, couple of nice broonies under that bridge, mind you it is one of the finest trout rivers in the country

Looks to me like they were ripping down remnants of the great Caledonian forrest, I hope not, but on this estate I wouldn't be surprised,  its one of those "Kill, Destroy and Exclude everything estate".

Anyway from the big house in glen Avon it was a right turn (east) and a case of following the glen and fledgling river Don for 5 or 6 miles back to Corgarff Castle and the car. It had been a great walk in absolutely boiling conditions (ok at least 14 or 15, im Scottish,  thats like being in an oven).  My feet knew they had been for a walk, I even had a blister from a pair of boots that ive never had one before in. 

A bit of a blow out on the Scarp 1 the other week, the wind was reported as gusts of 111mph about 8 miles north (cairngorm top  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26575896 ) from where I was camped.  It was certainly the windiest ive ever been out in and in hindsight I made a wise decision to stay down in the glens. Even then it was a night where the pegs were being pulled, I awoke when the fly started beating me about the head, I actually thought the worst, but on inspection it was a case of the guys slipping and the pegs being completely ripped out, a quick hunt in the dark and a couple of house sized rocks were sourced and promtly deposited on top of the pegs, problem solved, although I just couldn't get the corner stays to sit as they should.

The door was also blown open twice and that was with the little securing clip fastened,  luckily I had previously put paracord loops on the zips as pulls and was able to use them and  peg the door shut/down.

My seam sealing seems to have worked fine though

A couple of days later and back home I set the tent up to dry and change a couple of guys, I noticed the corner stays were still looking a bit out of shape,  on further examination I presumed the inner pole had burst through the sleeve

A quick stitch hopefully fixes it, I sewed the whole hole thing up before realising that there is actually a gap at the bottom of every sleeve, presumably to allow the poles to be replaced/removed, i put a couple of stiches in each one to hopefully stop the problem re occurring.

INOV 8 Recolite 190

For the last year or two I've been craving some after hike footwear, i was often coming off the hill after a long day and driving home in bare feet, to be honest its not so bad, but then when passing the Ballater chipper it would mean more faffing about getting the boots back on,  (the law states that you must stop at the ballater chipper for a white pudding supper after hiking the east cairngorms).
     Flip flops are fine in good weather for scuddging about but are worse than bare feet for driving in,  I've also never really been much of a trainer person, so recently after a couple of very long and bloody hot days i started to put a bit more effort into finding an answer, first off I discovered that its actually quite a common whinge and recovery shoes seems to be the moniker given rather than after hike shoes.  Google is my friend (what ever happened to the other search engines?) and a quick search threw up some options, as luck would have it, sport persuit were doing a INOV 8 sale at the tine and the Recolite 190s were available and dully purchased at a decent price.
    A wee while down the line, and after my initial "WTF" are these moment i have decided that they are exactly what i needed, initially they were a bit of a scutter to get on, especially at the heel, but after a couple of wears that has eased up, now I find them to be really comfy, last week i took them to the Greek island of Paxos and actually wore them while wandering along the donkey paths and cliff tracks, they performed brilliantly,  I'm that happy with them that I reckon next year they will get a run out while munro bashing and not just the driving home/recovery shoe.
    If I wear the recovery shoes all day, what do I wear to recover??????