Arbroath housesitting and Munro bagging

On the summit of Lochnagar at 11:15am

Wednesday we completely confused both Angus and Hector to go and climb Lochnagar. Not that hard a mountain, but 1hr45min drive away. We set the alarm for 05:30 so Angus would only be on his own for a couple of hours before Lisa collected him, with the same after she dropped him off. We had tried Lochnagar probably 15 years ago and got within 100m and 17m of ascent of the summit, but the weather was so bad that even that close to finishing we backed off. It has been niggling Brian ever since. Wednesday however was a perfect day weatherwise, though I was surprised that the temperature was only in single figures as we set off. We made it to the summit in better than book time which never used to happen with the Munro book, so that was very pleasing. As was being on the descent, before midday meeting everyone else on their way up. See our short Relive video with more photos: click here. Hopped into the car and back at the house before 4pm where Angus tried to tell us he’d been home alone all day! We know he was lying, Lisa had not dropped him off much more than half an hour before!

Setting off for Lochnagar in the early morning sunshine from Spittal of Glenmuick The first 3.8km were on forest roads like this, gradually getting steeper and rockier. Lochnagar is the pointed bit sticking up there in the centre. We started at 400m above sea level

Thursday Angus was again with Lisa as she was having work done on her van on Friday, so I’d jumped at the opportunity of getting my shoe inserts moulded when they’d offered. This did mean we were up relatively early again, rather than having the lie in we both wanted, but it was a really good thing to get done. Back via Arbroath where we bought a pair of smokies for our dinner. Figured a week would be long enough for the smell to leave the house, though actually it’s not been too bad!

With a river crossing on the way, which Jackie navigated expertly

Friday we took Angus out to Scurdie Ness lighthouse which was a lovely walk which we all enjoyed. See our short Relive video with more photos: click here. We even got back before the rain, which is more than can be said for Sunday. Brian and I went to the Arbroath market which was great, bought beer, game pie and cheesecake, must be all the food groups there! Got back to the car just as the heavens opened. It seemed clear when we took Angus out, but that didn’t last for the whole of his walk. Just as well he loves his towelling dressing gown! Particularly as he managed to get wet through again on his “you are doing dinner, so I might as well take Angus out” ‘extra’ walk. That’s both dressing gowns then!

The stone cairn marks the spot we leave the forest path and branch left on a trail down over moorland towards our mountain (distance: 3.8km, altitude: 678m, time: 1hr7min)

Yesterday we did the same as Wednesday, up and out early for a slightly shorter drive (but still 1hr 30min) to the Glenshee ski area for another four Munro’s. Again we beat book time for the summits, but due to some dodgy navigation were slightly ‘misplaced’ on our way out. He enjoyed it more than I did, my knees were hurting before the last couple of kilometres which appeared to be vertically down, which is never good for the knees. See our short Relive video with more photos: click here. 

We'd crossed open moorland and climbed the first slope for our first view of the Corrie of Lochnagar. (distance: 6.3km, altitude: 930m, time: 1hr45min)

Today we are blogging while Brian starts on the tax returns. Sadly we have lost the blue sky and we have washing out, and Angus hasn’t had his walk yet, hmmm.

This was the steepest part of the climb, rising to a height of 1078m, 150m of ascent in 0.8km, time from start: 2hr10min

But this was the view from up there. We were to follow the ridge off left and clockwise. There's just another slight rise then pretty flat to the pointy summit over there on the right hand side. What a view!

Near the Cac Carn Mor cairn at 1140m looking past The Pinnacle down

The final summit of Lochnagar

On the summit. Distance: 8.99km, altitude: 1156m, time from start: 2hr44min (book time: 3hr2omin - didn't we do well!) and only 11:15am! Early lunch for us, we were hungry! 20minutes to enjoy the view and we were on our way down again

And that's the way we have to go. Follow that path and then head off to the left following the ridge and then down

Lots of Grouse in the heather with their distinctive call. Getting a photo is a different matter, but I finally got this one

Back on the forest track heading back to the car. From here we'd got to go through the first set of trees in the centre and the car was in the trees just visible to the right. In all we walked 17.92km, our elevation gain was 865m and it took us 5hr23min. Just an hour and three quarter drive to get back to Angus and Hector!

Next day it's Angus' turn on a coastal walk past Scurdie Ness Lighthouse

A very pleasant walk at the point where the River Esk meets the North Sea. There have been several lighthouses here over the years as its a fairly dangerous inlet. You can see the 'new' lighthouse built by Robert Stephenson and an older disused one lower down. There's also a third behind us that was the first. There's a harbour behind us in the river that services ships for the oil rigs. The sign said that bottle nosed dolphins and grey seals frequent the area, we kept our eyes peeled, but they weren't playing today!

Here we are parked up just north of Glenshee Ski Resort ready for our four Munro day. It was 8:15am and we'd been awake since 5:30. We were the only car in the car park (it was full by the time we returned). The mountain just left of centre is our first Munro, Carn An Tuirc, 1019m high. We start at 565m

Now just a track, this bridge used to carry a military road, the main route through this valley

The first 1.5km was a very pleasant walk alongside the Alt a' Gharbh-choire burn 

Looking back at where we've been as we start our ascent. The A93 road is across in the distance and the burn is snaking away below us. The eagle eyed will see another couple behind us on the track

A frog enjoying the rather moist conditions underfoot. It was quite boggy - we got wet feet!

The Munro book suggested a path round to the left, but the path we followed went straight up the face. It doesn't look that steep here, but it was!

Finally on the fairly flat summit of Carn An Tuirc, or is it that pimple in the distance? We'll go and walk over there just in case! (In fact this was the summit - just. Distance from start: 3.23km, elevation: 1019m, time: 1hr22min (book time 1hr40min - so far so good)

Not perfectly in focus, but I was pleased to get this photo of one of many Mountain Hares we saw

From here the walk gets less than exciting. The whole plateau is relatively featureless terrain and, after all the rain we've had - very boggy. The highest point, slightly to the right in this photo is our second Munro, Cairn of Claise, 2.4km away. It was here that we first met another hiker, a 63 year old fit guy who lives in Letham and regularly walks these hills

And here we are on the summit. Distance: 5.58km, elevation: 1064m, time: 2hr1min (book time: 2hr20min - still ahead!)

Met our 63 year old on the summit too. Had chance to discuss our onward route. The two Munros are in view here, Tolmount is over to the left above the corrie you can just see. Our last one is the rounded hill to the right, Tom Buidhe. Plenty of boggy ground awaits us in between! Our man was going to do Tom Buidhe first and Tolmount last as he lives in that direction, so we headed off and parted ways (him making lots of ground ahead of us at his faster pace

An example (there were many such areas) of the boggy ground we had to cross. You can see the track heading up towards Tolmount

Approaching Tolmount summit cairn

Summit photo on Tolmount. It was fairly cold as you can see. Distance: 8.73km, elevation: 958m time: 3hr (book time: 3hr10min)

Final summit photo. Tom Buidhe, . We'd been down, through bog and up again, meeting the couple behind us on the top. They'd overtaken us as we'd stopped to talk at some length to our 63 years old as we passed each other. Distance: 10.71km, elevation: 957m time: 3hr39min (book time: 3hr40min - we'd slipped through stopping to talk!)

Our route out. The summit ahead was our second Munro. Some descriptions leave that to the last, skirting round it on the way out. As we'd done it we skirted round it to the left, but it left us in uncretain ground, nearly dropping down into the wrong glen, having to back track uphill slightly. We would have been better to have gone back up to the summit and headed straight on down. But we didn't know that at the time

By the time we'd regained the ridge we were behind the couple again, however we watched them go in the wrong direction ahead of us but they were too far ahead to contact them. We headed down the correct route towards that peak ahead and then down to the right into the Glenshee valley

And there is the expanse of the valley that a photo never really captures. That's the A93 Glenshee road and you can just see the parking area with our car and many others now parked. Its a long way down!

But  we made it back for that lovely view before heading home. Total distance: 19.44km, total ascent: 913.7m, total time: 6 hours

In between all this we've done a 1500 piece jigsaw of the world, sometime to the disgruntlement of Hector!

Eaten Arbroath Smokies

I've been on a total of three parkruns at West Links on the seafront at Arbroath

Got very worried when finding Hector cat sitting precariously above a 20 feet drop on the balcony

Taken Angus (he's that small black dot in the distance) on many walks around the old golf course at Letham Grange

Drunk some very local beer brewed in a garage at Carnoustie

And struggled to do the blog with Hector on my lap! We're having a lovely time here, what a pity its coming to an end on Saturday

Housesitting in Scotland Week 2

Kayaking with Arbroath Cliff Tours. Here we are in one of the 'Big 5' caves, Stalactite Cave 

Wednesday as Angus was in DDC (doggy daycare) we took ourselves out. Colin and Louise had mentioned a kayaking trip they had been on, along the cliffs we walked on on Monday. The photographs they had looked stunning. When we parked up for our walk we saw Cameron of Arbroath Cliff Tours waiting for his next group, so went to say hi, we kept seeing them as we walked round, and then In the But’n’Ben having our lunch, the staff were all talking about the kayak trip they were going on ‘tomorrow’. It just seemed we had to do it! 

Inside Moby's Cave through the very narrow entrance

He kitted us up in shortie wetsuits, booties and life jackets, and after a short safety briefing off we went, just the two of us and Alison, a solo guest. A lovely number, for the three hour tour. There was space for one of us in the double kayak with Cam, so as Alison has her own kayak, I went in the double. Sea conditions were perfect, more important than sun obviously and we were very lucky, we got to see his ‘top 5’ best caves, including one he hadn’t been in for a fortnight. All of the caves have names, but we can’t remember them (Brian: yes we can: Stalactite Cave, Moby's Cave, Smugglers Cave, Blowhole Cave and the Bunker Cave). We also made it into, and out of very narrow Moby's cave, just in time as about 10 minutes later the tide would have made it undo able. We came out, just in time to see the dolphins swim past the entrance, jumping and playing. I had said I’d ‘booked’ the dolphins, but still didn’t expect it to happen. So very lucky! Cam has only been doing this since lockdown as before this he was a wedding musician and a photographer, neither of which were happening, so he was out exploring, taking pictures, at which he is very talented, to find people wanted to get out with him. We had a great day and can thoroughly recommend a trip out if you are up this way.

Paddling out to the Horseshoe

Most of Angus’s walks since then have been round the golf course, which he is very happy with as it avoids the indignity of being lifted into the car, as the weather has been unpredictable. Not actually too bad, apart from Saturday which was horrible, but not guaranteed, though today looks lovely so we might take him out after lunch. We did take ourselves to the blue door walk, along the river which was very pretty, by only taking ourselves it meant we didn’t have to worry about Angus balancing on the cliff edge, on three legs, marking that bit of grass growing into space. It also meant that we could stop to look at the red squirrel and the dippers, which would never have coincided with where he wanted to stop!

Dolphins ahoy! They did play and leap into the air in front of us, but catching that moment rarely happens

Yesterday we went to Broughty Ferry, (no ferry now since the Tay bridge opened) as a stop off en route to Sole Body Soul, the foot clinic I went to 7 years ago on our first stay here as I’d been having problems with my Achilles’ tendons. The shoe inserts I bought have lasted amazingly well, but it’s time for some new ones. Sadly once there they found the delivery hadn’t come in so they didn’t have what I needed, so we are back tomorrow! Broughty Ferry has an interesting castle come museum, though we had been before when we got there, but that’s ok. We went into the town for lunch which was very pleasant before walking back along the sea to the car, only to get caught in a horizontal downpour. We looked very funny as we dashed back into the museum, as harlequins, both wet on the right sides of our legs but dry on the left!

Paddling in front of the Needles Eye

Chilling has been taken very seriously, though it’s not all we’ve been doing. Brian has been scanning and labelling old family photographs and I’ve been working on the jigsaw dad and Elizabeth gave us a couple of years ago for Christmas. We brought it here as we knew the table would be big enough! While scanning he has to jump up every now and then to rescue his new best toy, it’s not quite as amusing as the robot lawnmower from last year, but the robot vacuum cleaner does make you smile!

Here we are wading into the water in Bunker Cave

Paddling into Dickmonts Den a deep inlet 

Making silly shapes in the entrance to Smugglers Cave

We paddled into Mermaids Kirk and Cam pointed out a cliff jumping site. It wasn't that high and Cam assured me the water was plenty deep enough so, it had to be tried!

The entrance to Rocks of Solitude riverside walk. Everyone knows it as the Blue Door Walk for obvious reasons and you can make it as long or as short as you want along a very pretty gorge with plunging waterfalls and sometimes precipitous drops

Walking along a high section of the track

You can scramble down in various places to get up close to some stretches

Saw these two Dippers on a rock in the river

And this very cute Red Squirrel in the trees on the banks

Back to the house for some Hector love

He does like to chill out in style!

I did go for a ParkRun on Saturday and got a reasonable time, but it wasn't the best of weather!

Saw this hedgehog too while taking Angus out for his bedtime walk

Angus wearing his towel coat after getting a bit wet on one of his walks. We can change clothes, but he can't!

Angus on todays coastal walk along EastHaven near Arbroath

Hector in his little house

Angus on one of his walks through Letham Grange