Days off Around Braemar – Muir O’ Dinnet

Mon 28 Sep 2015
Now I’m getting older and my joints are wearing, I can’t hillwalk every day – I generally take every other day off. The first two hillwalks I did at Braemar on the last visit were big days so we both took a day off to be tourists the day after. This was the first of them and was to Muir O’ Dinnet and the famous Burn O’ Vat.

this photo was taken by me of my parents at the Burn O’ Vat with my mother’s Zenit B camera – my camera’s older brother

(click on photos for full size/resolution)
You park at the same carpark for both the Burn O’ Vat and Muir O’ Dinnet. The walk to Burn O’ Vat is pretty short so you can do both in a day. We’ve been a few times to both including, the first time, with my parents.

The link the Wiki page for the Burn O’ Vat is here – a pretty interesting place…

The Vat is entered through what looks like a ‘fairy entrance’ and you have to duck down to get through…

At the back there is a waterfall which you can clamber up the side of – the best photos are got from the top of it…

Looking back down…

One of my Mum coming in through the entrance – unfortunately the light was coming in too! This shot was taken with her Zenit B as well as she wasn’t supple enough to clamber up above…

Richard stood at the bottom

Returning to the carpark, the paths for the Muir O’ Dinnet walks are immediately across the road. I prefer these to the Burn O’ Vat as they’re longer, very peaceful and very beautiful and there are antiquities which give some parts a lovely atmosphere (for those who are sensitive to atmosphere). Richard and I both took photos this time so his are marked…

I was fascinated by how drenched in lichen and fungi the trees were but didn’t want to risk a film shot so got Richard to take this one…

He also took these two of the winding path:

Near the far end of the walk, there is a ruined farmhouse off on an extension to the route – it’s also an area of old dwellings from way before that. The atmosphere here is so peaceful we just had to sit for a while on a log – not sure how anyone could have abandoned a house in such a lovely spot. In summer there’s a rosebush growing up the side of the farmhouse.

Older shieling ruins…

We then came to the Iron Age hut circles and I stood on a tall boulder with Richard’s camera to take this shot. Unfortunately, although there’s about three circles in the photo, you can’t really make out more than one…

The path then doubles back to Loch Kinord which has brochs on the islands of the loch but you can’t see them for the trees growing rampant on the islands…

There had been signs about dangerous blue-green algae at the start of the walk and all around the loch. Here we saw it was not only plentiful, but also sometimes made beautiful patterns – I had to get a photo of course!

I took these two photos on a previous visit when I walked the route alone – the loch was more whipped up that day…

We then left the loch shore to visit a carved standing stone which Richard took a photo of…

and soon after we saw a wild black bunny so I got him to get a photo of that with his great zoom…

Unfortunately, just then, two large and noisy groups with dogs came along so the bunnies scattered and we changed our plans for the route back. I decided we’d go off piste and headed back to follow a rough little path through the trees back along the loch shore. Richard got another nice photo of the reeds around the loch shore from here…

We eventually made it back to the main path and back to the car where we decided to go onto Tarland so Richard could go in a pub there. We saw on the map there was a recumbent stone circle near there so had a quick visit to it…

Tomnavie Recumbent Stone Circle

This whole area is worth a visit for a nice, relaxing day. It lies between Ballater and Aboyne on a road heading north just after you leave Ballater and is well signposted.