A Drumtochty bike ride

When I flew back into Aberdeen I was mesmerised by how green it seemed. A long, dry and hot April broke the week I made my way home and the rain had signalled the start gun on a new growing season. The very sky seemed to be tinged with vibrant lime. Newly unfurl leaves were still soft with down, making a diffuse light and softness that summer heat soon toughens up. If I cannot spend all year, or even all winter on a dog sled, almost the next best thing is a day just like this, following my old favourite bike trails round Drumtochty. Even better when I'm introducing a new dog to the routes.

Dappled light in the woods

Ruby is a 5 year old red head collie, with just the right mix of obedience, character and fun. Twice she has very neatly unpicked the knots on the bin bags to get at the rotting mackerel bits that we'd trimmed of our catch. Her breath was so bad she had to stay outside all day. Her and Ghillie however have quickly established their own rythmn and it took only a couple of days for us all to forget she'd only just joined the family. She carries a magnificant tail with a white tip and is as light on her back feet that you'd think you were watching a fox when she trots ahead of you, checking the route. She has a spaniel snout though and a wicked way with rabbits and even a habit of pointing which came as a surprise. Mum has decided she can dare to plant salad again now their is a new carnivore on the scene. She came running the other morning with a set of baby rabbit legs hanging out her mouth and made sure to wolf them down as fast as a pelican with a fish before we could take it off her.

Ghillie and Ruby

I have explored the Drumtochty trails endless times and never bored of it. It is the kind of freedom I dream about on bad office days and yearned for during the heat of urban madness in Kampala. In the lower parts of the valley the woods are mature, mixed and open, with massive beech trees rising tall, smooth and straight, weaving a lovely fairlyland of dappled light and mysterious nooks for the bracken and bluebells to thrive in.

Leaving the car park

The toughest part of the ride is right at the very start. A short, straight section of inexplicably tarmaced road that feeds into the forestry trails. Cold muscles fight against even the lowest gear settings and the heart rate rises and rises as rapidly as the hill. Of course no photo does it justice. Some days I've picked a different route on the other side of the valley, simply because I can't face the first 5 minutes.

The sluice lade

The effort is brief though and quickly rewarded with entry into the lovely trees, which sit in steep banks so the roots are undercut and exposed creating hollows for trolls and witches and many other stories. In autum mushrooms and toadstools sprout with abandon in the deep moss and folded pockets and suddenly all the French in the area are to be found with carrier bags and pocket guidebooks.

Part of the bike/dog run tradition is that the dogs get to play sticks in the sluice pond, both on the way out and on the way back. I'll often spend a long time by the water here. The sound of it constantly falling over the sluice gates is calming and the dogs lull me into their contentment with the place. Last time I was here I watched an osprey circle overhead for a good while before we both moved on. Sometimes I'll watch a fern frond twirl lazily in the eddies before finally slipping over the end into the stream.

Ghillie does not like to get wet above his knees and is very protective of his sticks. Ruby has no such issues, which is fine when the water is watery, but the last pond she leapt into make her look like she'd fallen into a cauldron of chocolate. She has no particular interest in sticks, finding instead that there is quite enough to occupy her in all the new scent trails in the woods. She is literally inhaling her new world.

The path climbs in 3 main sections. I know each one intimately having cycled it I couldn't tell you how many times. I know how long it should take, what gear I should be in when and from that combination can guage very well how fit (or not) I am at that moment. It has to be adjusted of course, according to how dry and fast the trail is. Once I cycled it with a flat rear tyre. It nearly killed me. Right now the trail is hard, fast and dry so there are no excuses of boggy mud to be made for slowness and excessive labouring.

Mixed forestry quickly turns to commerical crop. We called this bike ride the Bison Run because it is a bit of a brute of a hill and because there were a herd of bison in a field just as you reach the summit on the first piece of work. The bison were sold off a few years back, along with the experimental wild boar which kept escaping so now the fields are empty again.

Ruby at the top of the bison run

The trail splits at the top of the bison run. My favourite route has me climb a little more before dropping into the other side of the valley and following a river along to a bridge where the dogs and I stop again, for a drink, sometimes a swim (all 3 of us) and commonly a very long ponder. Rarely do I meet anyone out here. More likely I disturb a deer or red squirrel, have a buzzard fly down the road ahead of me or I stop to linger over the misleadingly tropical coconut scent of gorse flowers. I have several favoured swimming spots, which I use depending on how tall the nettles have grown and where the sun is at the time I'm on the bike. A river swim is a real chance to grab a real sense of being out in the wilds, even if town is only 10 miles away in actual fact.

Between Drumtochty and Mergie

By now there is only one way home and that is to climb back up to the top of the bison run, using a different route but gaining all the height that I just enjoyed losing as I made my way to the bridge, dogs pacing either side of me like a warrior trio on charge. If I am feeling blue, the mix of my own endorphines and their delight in having such a pandora's box of new scents and sticks and running to be done soon lifts my spirits and if I'm really low, I can just push even harder on the chain and wear it out of me.

There is much to enjoy about being away, but one of the best things about being away so often is getting to thrive again in the sense of being home.