Holidays 7

Friday - oh no - second to last morning in The Stables - can it all be coming to an end? It feels like we've been here for weeks! Today we got ourselves up quite early (7:30) after a good night's sleep on both parts, but after coffee both collapsed back into bed - Dan for further sleep and me to update the blog and more piccies popped up onto picassa.
Dan then suggested we go and have a look at a waterfall - good thought! So we checked out the map and found a loch with a waterfall really near to Ballater - called Loch Muich (pronounced "Mick") off we drove - Dan was delighted because about 6 miles of the road were single track and we could see very clearly what was coming along the road so a small 'T.M.' ensued. (T.M.= turbo moment) So off we bimbled down this track....and parked in the car park. There were warning notcies on the pay & display information saying not to go down to the lake without being properly kitted out! There was a 'short-ish' walk round to the end of the lake and back - about 3k - so we decided to do that. Fortunately we both do 'gear' so we did have all the gear this time. Good job! It was WILD out there. The loch sits in a wide flat bottomed valley and the wind must have been whilsting down there at 100mph! Some bits we could hardly take a step! Mega! Talk about blowing the cobwebs away. It took us about an hour and a quarter to walk around and at the bottom of the valley it was like being on the surface of the moon! Really beautiful. On the way home we drove to Balmoral throught the back roads, really gorgeous countryside. I can see why queenie likes it up here. The seclusion must be a relief.
When we got home we went for a cuppa and a scone in another nice local tea shop. The couple who run it are from Devon (22 years in Ballater tho') and were dead chatty, talking about the difference between life up here to down there. Very friendly!