Another Shire visited

Been a while since I had time update my yearly challenge but since my last update 4 new shires visited, but only telling you about 1 here.



# on map	Counties of Scotland	Date Visited	Where	Landmark visited
8	Aberdeenshire	10.4.11	Cruden Bay	Aviators Memorial
	Angus
	Argyllshire
	Ayrshire
7	Banffshire	5.6.11	Dufftown	Clock Tower
27	Berwickshire	8.5.11	Coldstream  &  Greenlaw	Bridge, Marriage House, Town Hall & War Memorial
	Bute
	Caithness
	Clackmannanshire
	Dumfriesshire
	Dunbartonshire
	East Lothian
	Fife
4	Inverness-shire	15.5.11	Carrbridge	The Old Packhorse bridge
	Kincardineshire
	Kinross-shire
	Kirkcudbrightshire
	Lanarkshire
	Midlothian
	Moray
	Nairnshire
	Orkney
	Peeblesshire
	Perthshire
	Renfrewshire
	Ross & Cromarty
	Roxburghshire
	Selkirkshire
	Stirlingshire
	Sutherland
	West Lothian
	Wigtownshire
	Zetland

Sunday 5th June 2011

Decided we needed to get out on the bikes, an ideal chance to visit shires and get another 2 landmarks for my Round Britain Rally.  I planned the route to take in 2 of Scotland's Ski areas, which in itself will tell you we were aiming high.  But first a nice run through the Angus Glens, some fantastic single track roads, shame about all the sand and gravel up the middle of them, think we will be back here later in the summer.
We were meeting up with our friends in Ballater so I finally get to ride the Bike over Glenshee, and from Ballater we head over The Lecht road, colder up here but the roads are GREAT. 
We really need to say a big thanks to the gentleman out for a walk near the village of Tomintoul, he gave us a rather strange wave, quick up with the head to scan the horizon for white vans and sure enough the unmarked camera car was sitting just a wee bit up the road, that man probably saved us a few pounds that day.
As usual with any ride over The Lecht we had to visit  The Old Fire Station cafe apparently the bacon rolls are to die for but so is the soup and millionaire shortbread.

Riders suitably refuelled then on to Dufftown, it had been my intention for a while to get a photo of the tower on the main street through the village its a bit quieter on a Sunday so easier to get the bike in there as well.
The Clock tower was originally built to house the village jail, its now used as the tourist information centre.
The clock  is known locally as "The clock that hanged MacPherson". MacPherson of Kingussie was an infamous freebooter condemned to death at Banff in 1700 for robbing the rich and giving it to the poor. The local inhabitants raised a petition for his reprieve but when the pardon was on it's way, MacPherson's arch enemy, Lord Braco, the Sheriff of Banff, put the clock forward a quarter of an hour to make sure MacPherson would hang. Sometime later the clock was removed from Banff and installed in Dufftown's tower.

Have to start heading home from Dufftown via Huntly to refuel the bikes, no more coffee stops for us now :-(.

Had a fantastic ride out with Hubby, Brian, Dianne, Chris & Mark (Sheena was lying sniffling at home), and today is the day that I proved to everyone else I ride with that I can concentrate when I want to and that it makes me go round corners a bit more ambitiously than usual.