Aimless although amiable amblings around Aberdeen.

Bit late with this, I've been lazy / busy (delete the latter as applicable). Last weekend I had another weekend in Aberdeen to escape the Wet(-ish) West. The Aberdeen coast is a sometimes good and often useful climbing venue, sheltered from the regular soakings that afflict most of the mountain areas in Scotland by, errr, most of the mountain areas in Scotland. It was criminally missed out of Gary's Scottish Rock books, his "reasoning" that it's often birdy or greasy being particularly insubstantial given that the rightly much-lauded Highlands And Islands are pissing with rain 33% of the time, submerged under snow 33% of the time, and heaving with midge death squadrons 33% of the time. Not even the slightest mention of Aberdeen or the Costa Del Moray Coast as useful alternatives, instead the space being taken up with gimmick photos of Mull non-move-wonders and verbose page-filling descriptions of exact protection for mountain E7s....hmmm....

ANYWAY. I went there. It was fairly dry. It was also fairly cool, a brisk south-westerly meaning it was either cold in the sun or cold in the shade. Not really a problem for me but it made it tricky choosing the right venues overall. In the end I did a bit of bouldery trad at Long Slough (short but quite fun and interesting rock), a bit of bouldery sport at Cambus O'May (not as bad as I feared, quite inspiring for Aberdeen sport climbing), a bit more bouldery trad at Clashrodney (nice enough although not much choice left there for me) and a bit of bouldery bouldering at Boltsheugh (fun but very limited easy circuit).

As much as actually getting out on the rock, the highlights of the weekend were hanging out with some of the friendly posse around Aberdeen, both deliberately and inadvertantly, and sampling the hospitality of The Neuk and Newmachars, and also making a new best friend in the tiny rotund form of Sir Voleington Volealot Of Volesbury:



They're not very good pictures as the wee bugger was all of a frisk and fond of frolicking around in dark clefts. He was exceptionally cute tho and no slouch on the routes either, here he is on the first ascent of Vole Corner VS 4c ***


Ho hum.