Sunday 31st August 2014

An early start, (or silly AM as I call it) saw me sitting in my old SAAB at Tesco Riverside, faded paint diffusing the morning sun, wrecked roof liner hanging round my ears, well I can sort that .

The plan had been hatched during the week, we were going to climb Ben Lawers and maybe Schiehallion if there was time.

In a trickle of time Aileen, Andrea and Diana arrived and we got on the road north, a look in the mirror revealed the 2 rear seat passengers making use of the comfortable rear seats to catch up on some sleep.

We took the Schiehallion road from Aberfeldy, as it seemed everyone else had already done Lawers so we were doing Schiehallion first and with Lawers being a “Bunro”* I can always go with a bike if it didn’t fit in!

As we set out the summit was shrouded in a mist offering a fear on a poor lunchtime view and a good path meant we made good progress.

Diana even found time to stop and partake in a coffee stop and revel at the late summer purples in the heather before we hit the rock fields that make up the last couple of Km.

The mist turned out to be passing clouds and as one floated by below us the summit cleared, and a look in both directions showed it was not a quiet day on this hillside

Picking our own ways across the summit boulders we reached the summit and then descended slightly North to luncheon with fantastic views towards Loch Rannoch

As we descended the decision not to hit Ben Lawers was made, with a bit of a drive to it and a similar climb time we would be looking at a post tea time descent and well… cake is critical and I had run out!

We rounded off the day with the now creaking SAAB carrying us down to Kinloch Rannoch and round to Pitlochry via a stop at the Queen’s View before a late afternoon hopscotching dietary requirements, Aileen and Diana had to sit and suffer while myself and Andrea tried out the Moulin’s Venison Starter, before making us suffer as they ate their Fish Suppers and Chocolate cake down by the lochside, before returning to Dundee worrying about that odd creak coming from the offside suspension turret and how I’m going to fix the latest spring failure in the driver’s seat base.

Dietary requirements:

 Aileen and chocolate cake
 Andrea and Ice Cream
 Diana and Gluten Free Fish Supper
Trusty, Creaky, Needing fixed again, SAAB.

• A “bikeable” Munro, although the term is entirely down to the skill (or nutjoblevel) of the rider.
• Niall Wallace