Just a bit of a catch-up of where we've been, for my own memory-augmenting purposes:
Saturday 9th
Where was Bertie? He spent a night in one of the car parks at Spittal of Glenmuick at a cost of £12 for two days and one night.
Weather: sunny intervals in the morning, snow showers in the afternoon and evening, getting progressively heavier.
On Friday I learnt that overnight parking of motorhomes is now permitted at Spittal of Glenmuick, thus our plan to attack Lochnagar from Auchallater (to the NW) was modified to doing it from Spittal of Glenmuick to the E - a drive of around an hour. We got an early start from Glenshee, getting out of bed and (almost) straight behind the wheel, arriving in Spittal of Glenmuick around 0715.
The price of £12 to park there is something of a bargain, given that it costs £6 per day for a car, meaning that the campervan ticket is the same price as two car day tickets - and sure enough, our ticket bought upon arrival was valid until 2359 on Sunday.
An excellent day was had going over Lochnagar and the nearby Corbett of Conachcraig, and a gloriously quiet night was had.
Sunday 10th
Where was Bertie? Ballater Caravan Park at a cost of £33 including electricity and wifi
Weather: Gloriously sunny start to the day, clouding in later (I think there were a few showers too). Jolly cold for the time of year!
After hanging around in Spittal of Glenmuick for the morning, we left at noon, timing ourselves nicely to arrive at the campsite at the earliest check-in time of 1215.
The last time I was at Ballater Campsite was in 2018, some three years after the devastating floods. I'm not sure if my memory is lacking or whether they've done much more work on this Community-owned site since, but I'm struggling to think of a better quality campsite. The grounds and pitches are immaculate and so is the toilet block. The showers were hot and powerful, had a bench, hooks and a shower curtain and it wasn't a push-button affair - everything you want in a campsite shower except the lack of a shelf for soap and shampoo.
Their wifi was actually usable at all times too, which is a rarity, in our experience (usually campsite wifi grinds to a halt at peak times).
We went out to the Alexandra Hotel for tea, and had a good meal, even if they did seem to be trying to break speed records in their serving times.
Monday 11th
Where was Bertie? He spent a night in a car park next to Drumtochty Castle
Weather: unreasonably cold for the time of year (a high of 9 degrees)
After packing everything away and making Bertie ready to travel, save for the need to unplug him and remove him from his ramps, off to a local cafe we went for coffee, returning to Bertie in time to still get off the site before the 11.30 latest-departure time.
Our first call was to a little car park SE of Strachan, so that I could recce the course of a 24-hour race that, unfortunately, I won't be taking part in this year. Part of the course is at an outdoor activity centre and I wasn't sure that the land there fell under Scottish access rights, so we just did the big loop section of the course and peered over a gate at another section. Back at Bertie, Mick didn't join me as I said I was just going to wander down the road a short way to see whether the paths around the loch were visible, so I could see whether they were surfaced or grass. At the entrance to the activity centre there are some grand gates and a security camera, however, there's also a board detailing a number of marked trails that run within the grounds, which, combined with the unlocked pedestrian gate, I took to mean I could go in and explore.
So, I ended up walking the entire course (albeit not all in the right direction) save for a little bit where it passes in front of the house (and where there didn't appear to be a waymarked trail) and another small section where I was just too lazy to do an out-and-back. It's a good course that looks fairly hard (it's far from flat), and would be harder if midsummer's day fell within a wet spell and the ground was boggy. The recce hasn't put me off; maybe next year?
We might have stayed in that car park for the night, but I suggested that the merit of moving to the start point for my next hill would be that I could leave Mick in bed in the morning and nip up there early. So, down to the south side of the Fetteresso Forest we went. The final distance was on a minor road, and as we started along there Mick told me we were being pursued by another motorhome. We pulled into the empty car park one after the other and I feared how busy the place was going to get. It turned out that it was just freak coincidence that we arrived together, and save for the short stays of a couple of dog walkers' cars, we were the only vehicles in the car park the whole time we were there.
As it went, I did my hill almost immediately after arriving, and after doing that I suggested that we could move on again, to tomorrow morning's hill. That would have had the benefit of a better mobile phone signal*, but we decided to stay put - a beneficial decision, as just as Mick was closing the curtains, this chap(ess) came to see us and froclicked around in front of us for a short while before disappearing out of sight:
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(*I made a quick 'how to' video for a TGO Challenger that evening, and even though it was under 100MB, and I positioned the phone up on the roof, it took the best part of an hour to upload to YouTube. The following day I made another video of almost identical size and, on a better mobile signal, it uploaded in a few minutes).
Tuesday 12th
Where was Bertie: He spent from Tuesday afternoon until Friday morning in the car park of the Park Hotel in Montrose.
There's forestry works going on somewhere behind the car park at Drumtochty Castle, and on Monday afternoon and into the evening, various vans, trucks and timber lorries came and went. All then went quiet, until at 0440 on Tuesday, when another timber lorry came past us. That's an early start, even by HGV standards!
Even with that early morning alarm call, staying in that car park had been the right decision for two reasons: firstly, the pine marten of the previous evening, and secondly, the high winds. The view point car park to which we went next, as the starting point for my next hill, was exposed (as view points tend to be) and it was windy enough that it would have been a disturbed night.
It had been a cold night, and we were expecting a phone call at 9am, so we didn't hang around for breakfast, but rather got up and moved straight away - both warming Bertie without running his gas heating and achieving a phone signal for the call. The phone call got cancelled, so up my next hill we both went, before heading the few more miles to TGO Challenge Control in Montrose, arriving a day earlier than we needed to (bad planning on my part!). I actually have no need to be there at all this year, but Mick wanted to be there for a few days this week, as TGOC Easters set out, then a few days next week as they arrive on the east coast.
We have, for years now, spent at least a week in May sleeping in the car park of the Park Hotel whilst working on Challenge Control. This year I felt a bit cheeky and conspicuous, not so much parking in the car park (as Mick has a valid reason to be there), but each time I nipped through reception to use the facilities or wifi.
Incidentally, during this week our mobile phone count in Bertie has dwindled from five, to a more reasonable three. One has been sent to my sister, who is having traumas getting broadband connected at her new address, so that she can use it as a mobile router (neither she nor her husband use smart phones) and the other is now temporarily a Challenge Control telephone, after one of theirs developed a problem.
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Friday 15th
Where's Bertie? He's at Gardener's Cottage campsite in Fern, where he spent a couple of nights last August. Since then they've had toilet/shower facilities installed (£1 for a 6-minute shower). The price is still £20 including electricity.
Weather: Sunny, but windy and still unreasonably cold for the location and time of year.
As we drove into Montrose earlier in the week, I noted 'Montrose Air Station Museum' on the map. It only opens Friday to Sunday, so we couldn't stop by on our way in, but by virtue of still being in town this morning, we could visit on our way out.
I would share some photos, except I took none. I can only attribute this to how cold it was - even the inside exhibits. After I completely lost the feeling in my fingers, we repaired to Bertie for a cup of tea, before visiting the final two hangars.
As air museums go (and we've probably been to more than the average person), I wouldn't rate this one as outstanding value for money as it's pretty small with lots of written words, but not a vast number of physical exhibits (entry was £10 for me, £8 for Mick). That said, I would recommend visiting to anyone who has an interest either in the subject or in Montrose; it was interesting and I'm happy to have learnt some stuff, supported them, and heard about their expansion plans. We were there for 3 hours, but it probably would have been four had it been a nice warm day.
From the museum we came straight to this campsite at Fern, a half-hour drive away. Tomorrow morning we've got another half-hour drive to get to the hills I intend to visit this weekend.
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