On Saturday we headed out for another hike with our friends, Jonathan and Laine and their pup, Bailey and along with some new friends, Debbie and Luke, who just arrived on Thursday! We headed south west this time to a little town called Edzell and completed the Rocks of Solitude River circuit. I had heard about this hike but didn't really know where it was until I visited my friend, Gail, a couple of weeks ago. We drove by this beautiful river on our way out to Loch Lee and I knew that I had to return as soon as possible.
The walk started out a little rough (completely the tour guides fault which happened to be me :-/. There is a website called Walk Highlands that gives great descriptions/maps of walks all over Scotland and I always use it as my tool. I won't say it let me down but it did confuse me a little (need something to blame ;-). Since I didn't think we parked at the car park that the map instructed us to, I got all sorts of confused. I simply should have looked for the post office which was clearly described in the print off. And in the end we were parked exactly where we were supposed to be. Anyway, it bought us some time to see if the rain was going to effect our whole hike and after the 3rd start we were on our way with sunshine and all!
The pups were able to swim right off the bat so after we let them take a their first dip of the day we were on our way.
We were constantly stopping to take pictures and take in the stunning scenery. The changes in the river were pretty spectacular as it changed from slow moving to rapids to a deep gorge as the river squeezed the Highland Boundry Fault, where the Lowland and Highland meet. There was a protective fence since the drop off was pretty steep.
The walk followed the river during the first half and then we cut off through the woods for a bit where we stumbled upon a castle ruin. Stumbling upon castles in Scotland is almost a daily occurance especially when you're out hiking.
We then walked along a country road for about a mile and came across this sign. Angus was the name of the area that we were in and we couldn't miss this photo op!
The walk ended along the river where the dogs got one last splash.
We covered about 8 miles and only stopped once for a snack break so, needless to say we were hungry! We stopped, on the way home, in the quaint little harbor town of Stonehaven to enjoy some yummy Scottish fare.
It was another breathtaking hike with great company!
Beautiful scenery! I hope to check it out sometime:)
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