From the Mither Tap

Another day of our 'stay at home' holiday, and the prospect of fine weather tempted us to walk 'across the shoulder' of Bennachie to lunch at the Old Post Office in Chapel of Garioch.

However, things didn't turn out quite as we originally planned... On reaching the Bennachie Centre, and discovering it was still open (until the end of October, on Friday) and serving tea and snacks, we decided to spend the entire day on the mountain.

Even then, we didn't envisage tackling any of the summits. We only ended up on top of the Mither Tap because after a while up on the slopes of Craignathunder, picking out points in the landscape from which I'm so often photographing the Mither Tap, it seemed easier to go on following our 'makeshift' track - however steep, rocky and wet it became - rather than stick to our plan to 'follow the contours' around the mountain, across the rough heather.

This eventually brought us to one of the well-maintained 'pedestrian superhighways' that link the more popular parts of the mountain, and from there it seemed silly not to make it right to the top.

So here is the view looking south west from the Mither Tap around the middle of the afternoon, in which one can see the River Don flowing down from the mountains to the west, and on the horizon, the outline of Morven.