Another month passed with seemingly no chance for another bivy. I’d taken some gear with me on our holiday with friends in the Lake District, but hadn’t wanted to be antisocial and disappear off for a night rather than hang out. Various other happenings left me looking at using the last night of the month to try and achieve a school night bivy on Tuesday after work. The same drill as usual getting the kids to bed and I headed out around half 9 on the Van Nicholas with its offroad tyres on for a change, since I wanted to get a bit further afield in as little time as possible. I made the most of the last of the light with a bit of riding through Hazelhead and Countesswells, before emerging back onto the roads in the fading light.
Once on the tarmac, I got my head down and took a pretty direct route out towards the Hill of Fare, eventually turning off to climb past some farm houses and on past the old quarry. The gearing was just low enough to manage the whole climb whilst laden, much easier than last time I’d bivied up this way and had done this climb in ice and snow! Eventually I reached the end of the easy track and hopped off for a wee walk up to the saddle between Hill of Fare and Greymore.
Eventually the track levels and smooths out a bit, allowing me back on the bike to ride out the last climb after turning right towards Greymore. I’d bivied here a couple of years back in January and wanted to try and get to the same spot, as it had a couple of nicely spaced trees with a decent canopy for shelter. I detached my light and whacked up the power to try and identify the spot as I went along. Once found, I climbed up through the heather and got myself set up in the cosy hollow under the trees. I was a bit exposed to the wind here, but it meant I’d have a view towards the sunrise in the morning.
There was a hint of light rain in the forecast, but it looked like it had already passed during the climb, so I skipped the tarp and got my head down after a quick cuppa from my flask. Alarm set for early o’clock as I was paranoid about being late for work. I was just using a thin silvered bedding blanket between the layers of my DD hammock to see if it was up to the job of insulating me in milder temperatures. It was mostly a success, but I did feel the odd cold spot during the night. I’m sure it would have been fine at a lower elevation though.
After snoozing my way through sunrise, I dragged myself up and had another cuppa and snack for breakfast before starting to pack up. I find for these short overnighters, a flask makes a lot more sense than taking a stove. It fits nicely in the monkey cage on the bike bottle mounts and takes away the faff of boiling water and brewing up twice – especially important when you are heading to work in the morning!
Once packed, I dragged the bike back down onto the path and slowly rode along the rest of the ridge, enjoying the sense of remoteness, despite being less than an hour’s ride from home.
I nursed the bike down the initial steep descent on a cut up, rocky stretch of track, before opening the taps once things got smoother and swooshing my way down towards the Echt road.
Back on tarmac, I took my usual mixture of quiet back roads past Flora’s cafe and on to Peterculter, where I joined the Deeside Way to head along my usual commuting route. I’d got my timings spot on and even had a few minutes to bask in the sun in Duthie Park before continuing on to work for a hot shower and return to reality.
