Braemar

Sunday, 22 June 2014

On our first day - Sunday, we did a nice walk around the village.

Braemar is a lovely village.  Very popular with tour buses and the house we are in - Ivy Cottage - is lovely.  We both like it more than Black Swan Cottage.  It is probably newer, and lighter.  The living area in Black Swan was pretty dark, whereas here there is plenty of light throughout the whole house.  One big disadvantage is that there is no washing machine and dryer.  There is however, an offer to have a load of washing done, dried and lightly ironed for ten Scottish pounds.  $20 seems pretty close to our last economic bench mark in this regard which was in Rome in 1995 when it cost us $Au28 for a load of washing albeit minus the light ironing!

There is a Co-Op supermarket in town which opens at 8.00am and closes at 10.00pm - very handy and there are a number of pubs, cafes and gift shops.  

The village is on the River Dee which has lots of water in it and we are close enough to here it from the bedroom window.  One of the inconveniences we have found is that nearly every place we have stayed in has been overheated and we have had sleepless nights because of the heavy feather doonas on the beds.  Here we have a lighter one, but it still gets too hot in the bedroom.  Our solution has been to open the windows and turn off the radiator.

Braemar Village from the Lion's Face and Cromins walk.

Invercauld House - Monarch of the Glen?

  



















Monday, 23 June, 2014

Mary and I drove out to the start of the Ben Macdui walk. It was from the National Trust Car Park and we walked the old road to Derry Lodge, a round trip of 10km. I had been considering hiring a bike to reduce the 34km walk to 24km plus 10km on the bike; however, when I saw the road with lots of granite chips I decide against it as I could have spent more time repairing a probable flat tyre than the ride would have saved me. It was an easy flat walk and useful to get the lie of the land.


Tuesday, 24 June, 2014 

The Ben Macdui Walk

The mountain weather forecast was that this was a perfect day to walk in the Cairngorms and so it turned out - even got a little sun burnt!! Well I said cheers to Mary and set out from the car park at 9am with a rough estimate of being back at 6pm. The road ahead was fine again and crossed the Lui Water soon after the start - here is a pic of the road ahead to Derry Lodge -

It was a  beautiful day for walking - breeze light and warm. I made good going as expected to the Derry Lodge and set of up the track along the west bank of the Derry Burn before reaching a footbridge after a northerly bearing of about 3km and continuing up the east bank of the Derry Burn -

The track was fine walking of just over 3km to a junction in the track with my direction being to the left (N Westerly). The track follows the line of the burn with another foot bridge just after the junction to lead back the now southern bank of the burn and the soon to the Hutchinson Memorial Hut. It was difficult on such a glorious day to imagine the conditions in which this hut would be a life saver. A photographer taking photographs of the burn descending from Loch Etchachan told that only last three nights had been horrendous and a fine sanctuary for some young women belonging to one of seven groups of Duke of Edinburgh Award candidates in the Cairngorms.

The climb from the hut to Loch Etchachan is not difficult but it is the steepest part of the walk. From the eastern end of the loch it bears to a south westerly direction crossing a stony slope where for me on the second day after the summer solstice the track disappeared in a few spots under the remaining snow - which of course was now ice thus requiring me to keep to the safety of a stony diversion. After this the track follows the ridge to a lochan indicating the approaching westerly turn to the easy climb to the Ben Macdui summit.

There were, to my surprise, quite a few walkers at the summit, until I realised that they had arrived from Cairngorm route in the north. I had a quick lunch after unsuccessfully trying to send a text to Mary pushing my eta from 6pm to 7pm but of course there was no service - why was I not surprised. 
The mobile coverage in the UK is pathetic given the number of carriers and the small area to be covered. There is also, as in Australia, the low level of competition amongst the carriers who do not share their transponder installations. That is unless you carry a foreign mobile in which case if you set it to auto it will find the best provider. Why is this so? Well for foreign phones you pay to receive as well as to send a call. Get it now? Yes greed is good. 

On the way up I spotted a cairn that I thought might have marked the turn off to the alternative route back to Derry Lodge. I was correct as it turned out but I had no track so needed to take a bearing of 150 degrees across and down a grassy slope beneath the cliffs to the west of Lochan Uaine. On a less perfect day with cloud or mist it would have been a difficult navigation but on this day I could see the start of the track at the start of the Sron Riach ridge and was able to head directly for it. The walk down was as difficult as any walk down a moderately steep ridge but eventually I made it to the Luibeg Burn. The views from Sron Riach of Carn a' Mhaim and Coire na Poite were fantastic but I was too busy descending to stop and take a pic which would not have done justice to the view. Here is a pic looking back at Sron Riach -

The return was an easy walk along the eastern bank ( becoming the northern bank) of the Luibeg Burn to arrive at Derry Lodge and then on to the car park to meet Mary at just after 7pm.  (Actually as I didn't get his message I arrived at 6.00 and when he wasn't back by 6.30 decided to walk toward where I hoped he would be on the way back.Hadn't got too far when there he was.  Said he was a bit sore and tired - not surprisingly - no way could I have done that walk in that time.)

Brian skipped over the trip from Newcastle to Braemar.  It was pretty uneventful but as I commented about the Motorway Services in England have to say that the first Scottish one we saw was much more like the Aussie ones.  Much smaller, and with a much more rural feel to them.

Braemar is a lovely village.  Very popular with tour buses and the house we are in - Ivy Cottage - is lovely.  We both like it more than Black Swan Cottage.  It is probably newer, and lighter.  The living area in Black Swan was pretty dark, whereas here there is plenty of light throughout the whole house.  One big disadvantage is that there is no washing machine and dryer.  There is however, an offer to have a load of washing done, dried and lightly ironed for ten Scottish pounds.  $20 seems pretty close to our last economic bench mark in this regard which was in Rome in 1995 when it cost us $Au28 for a load of washing albeit minus the light ironing!

There is a Co-Op supermarket in town which opens at 8.00am and closes at 10.00pm - very handy and there are a number of pubs, cafes and gift shops.  

The village is on the River Dee which has lots of water in it and we are close enough to here it from the bedroom window.  One of the inconveniences we have found is that nearly every place we have stayed in has been overheated and we have had sleepless nights because of the heavy feather doonas on the beds.  Here we have a lighter one, but it still gets too hot in the bedroom.  Our solution has been to open the windows and turn off the radiators! 

WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE

Recovery day for both of us.  While Brian was doing his walk, I was having an attack of vertigo.  Fortunately I had put the tablets I was given after the first attack I had experienced back in January into my luggage, -  just in case - .  Ian is not the only risk manager in this family. And they worked a treat.  By lunch time I was feeling soooo much better, I couldn't believe how bad I had felt earlier in the morning. 

We didn't do anything much on Wednesday.  Had a wander around the village looking in all the gift shops etc.,  and I did a walk which I would have done on Tuesday if I had been well enough.  I have decided that Scotland is soooo much better for walking than England.  All the trails we have been on since we arrived in Braemar are well marked, usually with maps or brochures and easy to follow.  BUT BEST OF ALL THERE ARE NO FARM ANIMALS AND ALL THEIR SH... in their National Parks and Reserves.
 

St. Andrews RC Church, Braemar

River Dee at Braemar on the "Brown" route

THURSDAY 26 JUNE

Brian had been trying to retrieve my bigpond email address.  Apparently Telstra just took it on themselves to close it down.  They did not advise us that they were going to do it, nor the reason why, so he has spent a lot of time trying to restore it.  He spent most of Thursday morning trying to rectify it - got on to Telstra but with little satisfaction -  so we decided to go for a drive to Ballater and do a walk that he had found when he was researching walking around Braemar before we left Oz.  He had read about some women who had forgotten their map, so couldn't do the walk they had planned, but came upon a walk that was very enjoyable i.e. Loch Kinord in the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve.  

It was a nice "along walk" and here are some of the photos I took.  One of the things that has taken my eye since we have been in Braemar is that the Scottish seem to have found a solution to an insoluble problem for people involved in Heritage i.e signage.  We first saw these signs when we did the walk on Sunday, and it is really ingenious.

 

The post

The Story

This celtic cross was carved over 1,000 years ago.

This one is 76 years old

 

 FRIDAY 27 JUNE

Brian spent the morning trying to sort out the email problems.  I did the
green walk around Braemar.  It is called the Queen's drive and according to the brochure was a favourite drive of Queen Victoria from Balmoral Castle.  We did not visit the castle this time, but drove past it on our way to Balater yesterday.  The car park was full so it looks as though tours of it are very popular.

Tonight we went to The New Distillery Ceillidh Band for a 'bush dance'
at the Braemar Village Hall.  There are only 400 people live in the village, but the population is inflated by tourists.  There were four of us at the dance tonight.  Two girls from New Zealand and us.  They were having a great time.  We got up for a few of the dances, met and chatted with some of the locals and found them very interesting.  It was not very crowded - only about 30 people there, but they were all enjoying themselves. We got up for a few dances and I couldn't help thinking that Helen McFadden would have been in her element playing the fiddle!

I haven't gotten used to the shortage of darkness here in Scotland.  The sun is up at around 4.00am and it doesn't get dark until after 11.00 pm.

Would definitely come back to Braemar again.






      

Guess what this is?


This is a pic taken outside Newcastle Central Railway Station. The security people were keeping pedestrians away from this particualr bike stand - but why? Well if you have a zoom-in facility on your computer (Hold Ctrl and press the + key should do it) you will see that it's a bee swarm on the bicycle seat!   

 

Make a bee line away from the bike in the middle!

ASHFORD TO NEWCASTLE

FRIDAY 20 June 2014  ASHFORD IN THE WATER TO NEWCASTLE ON TYNE.

Left Ashford around 8.30. and drove on a variety of roads as directed by the Navman.  The trip was unremarkable except for our stop at one of the Service Centres.  I remember years ago how impressed I was when we stopped in at one of these on the way up to London and I counted 48 ladies loos.  I was astounded because no where in Australia have I seen so many in one place and usually what happens in just about every venue is that there is a great long queue of ladies patiently waiting.  Well this time, while I think there were probably about the same number of loos, it was just the way the people flooded into them.  It was like being on the motorway itself.  There was a steady stream of people incoming on the left, outgoing on the right, and it was constant.  It was difficult to cut across the stream if you were on your way back and wanted to go to the restaurant!  We did eventually manage it, and have stuck with Bill's recommendation and usually have a Costa coffee, but we now order the cup rather the the big soup bowl they give you if you order a large one.

We found our way into Newcastle much easier than we did trying to get into Derby.  We stayed at the Royal Station Hotel and were really impressed with the refurbishment that has been done.  The chandeliers are magnificent and the carpet in the public spaces was really thick and luxurious.  They have modified the rooms as well to make them much larger and we had a large bathroom plus an office space as well as the usual bedroom furniture.

After checking in, we headed out to see the sites.  We have been to Newcastle on two other occasions - in the 1964 when we were going to Bergen in Norway, and in 2002 when we were going by train across to St. Bees so that we could walk back.  As Brian kept saying, on that occasion it took us about two hours to get there on the train and 16 days to almost get back.  

The one big attraction that I always seek out is the Tyne Bridge.  Not many people know that it has a very significant connection to Australia. When it was decided that there would be a bridge to connect the north to the south shore of Sydney Harbour, the contract to build it was given to Dorman Long and Co from Middlesbrough.  They had built the Tyne Bridge and if you look closely, those of you who know it, will see that it is a smaller version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  The Tyne bridge only has 4 lanes of traffic while the Sydney one has 2 railway lines, 6 lanes for road transports, and originally two tramlines, plus two lanes for pedestrians.  The other major difference is that the pylons on the Sydney bridge are much higher.

But very like it from this angle. 

Not nearly as wide as the Sydney Bridge

The other connection with Newcastle NSW is the name of the suburbs.  The Tyne bridge links the cities of Newcastle and Gateshead, whereas Gateshead is a seaside suburb of the city of Newcastle in NSW.  There are also lots of other suburb names that were obviously named after those in Newcastle on Tyne.

Since our last visit, they have built yet another bridge across the Tyne, known as the Millenium Bridge it together with the other bridges have become icons for the city. When photographed they form an eye.  The upside and downside of the Millenium bridge form the periphery of the eye and the Tyne and High level bridge represent the centre of the eye. I couldn't get a photo of it, but there are some from the internet which Brian has managed to import for me here! 

The Millenium Bridge

The other icon for the city is the theatre complex - known as the Sage - I haven't done any research to see what the architect or the city fathers had in mind - but it does bring to mind that it could be a combination of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House! 


 










 




Whether this is true or not, I was really impressed with Newcastle as it is today.  We went down to what is called Quayside and to me it was lively and vibrant.  We went to a pub - a Wetherspoon one - which was really lively, with lots of young people present.  There was one group obviously enthusiastic about the football, but close to us were a couple of men with a woman.  They had on their table a jug of drink that looked like something I have seen being drunk in various pubs we have been in, so I asked them what it was called.  It turned out to be a "Woo Woo" cocktail.  According to them it only contained a small amount of alcohol and was based on cranberry juice vodka and something else.  Despite their enthusiasm, I decided to stick to my half of larger (Stella) and Brian had his usual pint of Guinness.

We wandered along the river bank and came across a number of other interesting buildings.  Like a lot of buildings in UK and I guess worldwide they have converted some of the older buildings for use as something very different.  For example, here they have conserved an old flour mill and made it into their new Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Our Newcastle experience confirmed in my mind that if you are looking for a good place to live you should find a small manageable city that has a university.  This leads to a place that has good cheap food, good entertainment, and a city that is dynamic.

 

 





O