Gorge Walking

Sorry I’m not interacting on Blip at all. I’m up in the Cairngorms with Guides & Rangers, staying in a cottage with no signal. I’m blipping myself when we drive out in the minibus but it’s a limited time frame.

An earlier, swifter departure today as we drove to Spittal of Glenshee for gorge walking. It was a pretty warm day, but wet suits were tugged on and we were grateful to have them.

First we scrambled 30m down a steep slippery muddy bank before starting to journey along the river over some rocks. We jumped into a deep pool, scrambled over some more rocks, (said hello to a toad), swam out to a waterfall to feel its force, clambered over rocks once more, abseiled down a drop, jumped into the last pool and scrambled up the opposite steep, slippery, muddy bank.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it to be honest as I hate, I mean really hate cold water and whilst I’m a strong swimmer, I have a fear of drowning. I like mountains, not water. But, whilst I could’ve opted out, that’s not really part of the game is it? If we expect the girls to do activities, generally I’m of the view that we should do them too.

In the event, it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It took a lot of summoning courage to do the jumps but jump I did. Eventually! It was funny how some of us were phased by different aspects: two of the girls didn’t jump, but they swam to the waterfall that freaked out others. And one was terrified to an extreme level by the rock scrambling, which to most of us, was nothing. We are all different.

In the evening we visited Phil Glenny at Braemar Mountain Rescue Centre. He told us many stories and it was an eye opening visit.