A wee walk at Ballathie

Parking at Ballathie Hotel you can start this walk half way up the 'back' drive.  The track is the remains of the old Scottish Midland Junction Railway.  Is is very overgrown at the moment but you will see some remaining features from the railway days.  The Old Chapel which I blogged about in September 2010 has sadly deteriorated even more and the roof has totally collapsed.  A real highlight of the walk was the amount of butterflies fluttering about.  I don't know how far along you can actually walk along the old railway, in theory probably to Stanley, I shall check it out.  We just double backed and walked back round to the car via the main driveway. 

A few new 'Award' Certificates

 Last month I had an overnight visit from the Visit Scotland Inspector who decided I had reached the stage I could be put forward for 4 star gold a move up from 4 star, so I am pleased to say the B&B is now 4 star gold.

 Another new certificate is the Certificate of Excellence from Trip Advisor and thank you to everyone who has gone to the trouble of writing a review.

Earlier on in the year I decided to go for a green tourism grading and after our audit Gilmore House achieved a Silver Award, so plenty to work on to get up to the Gold at our next inspection.

A circular local walk around Monk Myre

 At the Rosemount end of Blairgowrie on the Coupar Angus Road there is a small lay by where you can park your car, take care crossing over onto the pavement as it is a busy road.  Take the road on the left where there is a house sign-posted Larkrise and follow the track.

 You will come upon hundreds of poly tunnels where all the strawberries are being grown on raised platforms, much of the land around here belongs to the Co-op, so that is where the strawberries will end up. All the rows and rows of strawberries was an impressive sight.  After passing the first field of tunnels take the track to the right where you will come to a field. The field has just been ploughed but there was a gate over the other side so it was easy enough just to walk around the edge of the field.

 Before I got to the gate I managed to photograph a group of herons.

 Once through the gate follow the path to the left and admire the area of water called Monk Myre an absolutely fabulous place to observe waterfowl.

 Keep following the track and you will come to a gate which takes you back onto a road at East Myreriggs, turn right and this road will take you back onto the main Coupar Angus Road.

From the Coupar Road you can easily link into a path on the left signposted Lochside, and I think you can park in here, which will take you along past Stormont Loch and Hare Myre which I have blogged about before.  Of course you don't need to take a car at all as all these paths are very straightforward to get to from the B&B, depends how energetic you are feeling!

Meikleour Beech Hedge

Just down the road from Blairgowrie on the A93 is the Meikleour Beech Hedge.  It is officially the world's tallest hedge standing at an impressive average height of 100 feet and 580 yards long, it is believed to have been planted in 1745.  You can't miss it as you journey to or from Blairgowrie, but did you know you can walk around the back of it if you just duck in under the branches.  It is like a secret world just yards from the main road but people passing are oblivious to you being there.  Many people over the years have carved their names and dates on many of the tree trunks, makes interesting reading.

Enochdhu to Spittal of Glenshee

I managed to get a few free hours yesterday so the dog and I headed up to Enochdhu, parking at Dirnanean Home Farm.  The walk we were doing goes over the hills to the Spittal of Glenshee and is 9.7 km in distance, but we were heading as far as the Upper Lunch Hut and back.  It wasn't the best of weather for a walk in the hills but still the views were super and the heather was starting to show it's glorious purple colour and deer bounded over the mountains.  We made it to the Lunch Hut and I enjoyed having a read through the visitors book to see if any of my 'Cateran Trail' walking guests had signed it, and of course I signed it.  Have to say the dog and I thoroughly enjoyed our walk yesterday despite getting soaked through. The walk to the lunch hut and back took about 2 hours 40 minutes at a reasonably gentle pace and stopping here and there.

A walk in amongst the Beech Trees at Courthill

A little bit further along the road from Kinclaven Church there is a wood on the left hand side called Courthill, you can park fairly easily next to it.  This particular wood is very popular in the spring as it covered in Bluebells, but today I came to look at the magnificent trees.  It is a very gentle walk with a narrow path gently snaking through the lush green bracken.  This wood is home to some fairly impressive ancient beech trees and you can only marvel at the shapes they have made over the hundreds of years they have been growing.  On my map it shows there is a memorial cairn somewhere in the fields at the top end of the woods, something for another day.