And Charlie was there, and Anne and her husband @ the Braemar Gathering 2018.

We left the Aberdeen Altens hotel at 10am - a bit late, but we'd talked with Sher and I’d finished the blog while Kevin packed the car.

11.45pm. After a very pleasant drive thru varying forests and forestry, even a bit of country which reminded us of the Wiremu Road, broken fences (usually stone walls) blackberry, ferns & gorse, we began wondering what happened with their logs? Do they export like us? A good site was forestryscotland.com.  “Timber has over 5,000 uses including paper, pencils, construction materials and even clothing.   The average person consumes 12 trees a year in their every day life -  wood, paper, packaging, cardboard, toilet tissue, etc.Cellulose is a complex carbohydrate which can be obtained from wood pulp. It is mainly used to produce paperboard and paper,  to a smaller extent it is converted into a wide variety of derivative products such as cellophane and rayon.” Rayon! All you sewers would remember, an extremely satisfying fabric to sew with, would hang so beautifully. I never realised it derived from wood pulp.

We arrived at Braemar car park, our estimates said around 2,000+ cars in a huge paddock, extremely well organised. Luckily Kevin thought to look for landmarks so we wouldn't misplace the little red ripper. There were two 16 seater buses waiting for passengers, most people were walking past, so a few of us who were more than capable of walking,  had a ride into the venue, about 1.5km.

It was hot! I swapped my shirt for a jersey before we left the car, but the weather was fantastic, tho when it very occasionally clouded over it cooled off. We may have even suffered a bit of sunburn?? We had a cheese burger for brunch, Kevin a beer & me a lemonade - well I thought it was until I’d almost skulled it, and Kevin asked me how my GIN was. All they had was beer, whisky or gin. Our seats (I'd booked them in April) were perfect, tho anywhere seated you had a good view.

The events were nonstop,  running, dancing, tugowar, putting Heavy stone 28lb (12.7kg), tossing the caber (20’1”- 6.1mtrs x 121lb - 54.88kg), try throwing that end for end!!! Sack racing, and always a pipe band playing. There were 14 bands. It was a fabulous, fantastic sight, up to 6 events running at the same time, certainly not boring. The people around us were good fun and we had some laughs.

The Hill race was horrendous, the age of some of the competitors was unbelievable.

The Royal family arrived at 3pm, you could have heard a pin drop, apart from people whispering who was who. The National Anthem was sang by all and even the Queen remained standing.

The town of Braemar, which we never saw a lot of, looks quite open, pretty and very clean. Huge imposing hotel at the towns border when we entered, grey, looked relaxed and inviting.

We found the car easily, Kevin overheard a couple who obviously been looking for their car for a while, he said “do you want a cuppa or a gin?” A gin, a large one! People were wandering blankly pushing remote keys, it was amusing - only if you’d found yours.

The drive north to WHITEHILLS was something else again. Thru the Cairngorms National Park, the A939, “It’s located, literally, in the middle of nowhere: bare landscapes, endless views over mountains, sheep and lambs grazing in the fields around you, and so remotely positioned that you might even spot deer or other wild animals. The road encompasses miles of stunning views through twisty hair pin corners, high elevations and steep grades. It takes you through the kind of sceneries you would expect to see on your drive through Scotland and it is one of those roads that barely has any traffic at all, because most traffic will be on the highway that runs next to the national park. A drive through the Wicklow Mountains is well worth it, bumpy, lots of twists and turns, isolated phone reception at time but pretty”. We drove a portion of this, there was quite a bit of traffic, due I think to the gathering. 

Stopped in Huntly for groceries, for our week at the Fishermans cottage (Whitehills). This town deserves a return trip! Cobbled, narrow winding streets, big open square, think we might be back for a look, a castle under historic Scotland - we can use ours cards!