Day 2 - Tuesday 15th June 2010
Woke up pretty early after an "okish" night's sleep at Braemar, got up at 7 but by the time, I packed, sleeping bag, mat and tent, washed and had one of Hilary's excellent cereal bars for breakfast it was 8:20 before I left the campsite it was a sunny but chilly morning, indeed the weather had been dry but coldish the whole trip so far.
I headed off towards the Glenshee ski centre, which was 9 miles up the road. The road was quiet and the birds were singing, a glorious morning, I wasn't sure just how hard the climb was going to be up to Glenshee, especially fully loaded, but it turned out that only the last 2 miles were steep and not nearly as hard as coming up from the other side, which I have done "unloaded" before. I had to have a short rest at the top though.
After the top you get the payback for the uphill struggle, a more confident descender would enjoy it more but I had my brakes on so that my loaded momentum didn't run away with me, after the initial steep downhill it does get shallower and so my brakes didn't overheat.
I took a very short detour through the spital of glenshee hamlet but not much to see there. After 20 miles down the road from Braemar I found my turnoff for Glen Isla/Kirriemuir, Kirkton of Glen Isla is 7 hilly miles down this road, these glen roads are very undulating and quite hard going when carrying luggage. I got to Glen Isla and found that the shop is only open Monday and Thursdays, so I couldn't buy any food for my lunch so I just headed off towards Glen Prossen.
Now, another 7 miles down the road, I came to my turnoff towards Glen Prossen, the road was really up and down and quite tiring. The weather was warming up, my plan for food now was to go up and down Glen prossen and then have lunch at the hotel at Dykehead. Now I had been up Glen Clova before and its scenery was the reason I wanted to do this tour but I must say I was a bit disappointed with Glenprossen, it might be because that parts of it were pretty steep and it was offering to come on rain and I was getting hungry but it didn't seem to provide the same views as it's more famous neighbour. I went up as far as Glenprossen village and then crossed over to the otherside which wasn't so hard going.
When I got to the bottom of the glen at Dykehead, to my dismay I found that the hotel there only served lunches at the weekend, it was 13:00 by now and I was starving. So I decided then that I would do Glen Clova now I knew the hotel at it's far end did food, if I hurried I should be able to do the 10 miles to there before 2. So I set off and luckily found that Clova is not nearly as hilly as Prossen indeed it seemed to be more downhill and I got to the Glen Clova hotel for 13:45, it turned out that they served all day anyway so there was no need to hurry but I was glad to get a meal there and watched the last half-hour of the New Zealand - Slovakia game, when New Zealand equalised to make it 1-1 in the last minute.
The food and beer is good at Glen Clova and I didn't really want to go to Kirriemuir it was just that it seemed to have the nearest campsite. I had already done 60 miles that day and I noticed the hotel had a bunkhouse, I picked up a leaflet and saw that it was £14 for a bunk so I inquired if they had one for me and luck would have it that the 2 man room was booked but the guests weren't coming anymore. So I got the room all to myself for £2 more than pitching my tent at Kirriemuir, not a chance to miss.
I had my dinner at the hotel while I watched the Brazil- N Korea game, 2-1, N Korea did ok but Brazil deserved to win and will be contenders. Got a good night's sleep there and even got my bike into the room as well.
So I was ahead of schedule and now I could aim to do Glen Esk tomorrow and leave an easier day on my way home on Thursday.
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