It was a sunny morning I think the daunder had enjoyed its night in the beer garden! The cleaner of cheers bar had to unlock it to allow me into the beer garden then wait briefly while I loaded the bike with my panniers so she could lock up again, I had a good chat with her while she waited it felt good to chat with a stranger not wearing a face covering,
I had a wee daunder around town to see the place, while stopping down at the harbour fionn the photographer from Pennan spotted me out the window of her office, she then came out for a quick chat, she gave me directions for where I would find my cycle route but said I should go along the beach front first, this I done gladly, even leaving the bike at a beachside pavilion to take a wee walk out to the sea to watch some surfers, for a brief time I thought I may have known these surfers as Brian that I used to work with surfs here regularly, it turned out it was three girls body boarding not surfers at all, a cue for me to roll out of town
The Beeching report on the railways is still spoken about with contempt in huge areas in the north of Scotland, he is hated by generations who blame him for killing rural communities, Beeching's legacy is now recognised nationwide, even to this day it thwarts plans to fulfil the country's renewed need for rail infrastructure, his report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, along with 67,700 British Rail job cuts with an objective of stemming the large financial losses being incurred on the nations railway network during a period of increasing road usage,
It’s my belief that much of his cuts were extremely short sighted, in fairness to him it was our government in the end that done the nasty work it was not one-man’s work, there is only one benefit to the axe. There are now more than 1,500 miles of cycle pathway in the UK that have been built on old rail track, most of that disused rail line generated by the Beeching Axe, my cycle route for the day being a good example of this
The cycle path from the Broch started right at the wonderful big beach near sand dunes, being an old railway line meant the route is very gently graded and easy to follow. the surface gets muddy along much of it making it best suited to mountain bikes, more of a walking route than a cycling one. The daunder is a touring cycle it can cope with a bit of gravel, the fat tubeless tyres although having limited tread for traction the size of them smooths the rough out, its not a route for slinky tyres with flimsy wheels, the only problem the daunder had that day was being heavy due to front and back panniers, this made the countless barriers encountered difficult to navigate through I cursed every single one of these, what kinda control freak designed these bloody things, my government is obsessed with gates and barriers on walking and cycling routes, this route being the worst yet for me, I didn’t let it spoil my day
Colin Gray had discussed this route to me while we were at work, he was instrumental in fact of me choosing this side route via the broch, him along with Bruce Scroggie the last I had seen them was sharing a forbidden sneaky after work beer with them to say our farewells, not goodbyes as they planned to join me on part of this section, Bruce had text to say my timing couldn’t have been worse it was his first day in a new job
While planning the route with colin he had told me to watch out for the Mormond hill monument, this monument is a giant horse made out of white stones it doesn’t tell you on any of the information boards but there is also a giant stag on the hill, I seen this stag first I liked these perhaps I should have come of the cycle path and went for a closer look? Pondering it and looking in to how old they are and their purpose for being there, made me decide they weren’t worth the effort of closer investigation.
When I got on this cycle path or to be more precise the Formartine and Buchan way to begin with, I thought yah beauty nae hills today, then I encountered a reasonably long section that was on an obviously slow incline, ok not truly a hill but I had forgotten trains did go up inclines, it had just been a while since I had been on a train in the mountains, which I have done many times previously in the alps and the Andes, I love train journeys but peddling uphill me being the engine! reminded me of a story my dad told me once, Before going into the army my dad worked for the railway, he was a fireman on steam trains (I prefer the word stoker but that’s for this job on steam ships), the trains he worked on left with cargo from grangemouth docks down to Carlisle, once while we were in a car together doing this route, he pointed to a hill out the car window near the border, He told me about his routine for that particular hill we were passing, steam engines are fuelled from a boiler his job was to keep that boiler fed with fire and water, when leaving grangemouth he had to shovel coal consistently into the fire in order to make enough steam, the faster the train went or the steeper the incline the more steam required the more coal he had to shovel, by the time he got to this hill he had already done a lot of shovelling but then had to shovel like hell, sweat lashing from him to get to the top of the hill, once at the top he would throw his shovel onto the coal pile, close the fire door retrieve a bottle of pre placed Newcastle brown ale out the water, smile and put his head out the side of the train to enjoy the easy downhill ride into town, the hard work done let the train take the strain
At the town of Maud there is a large (obviously) unused railway station, this was at one time a big deal as this was the crossroads in the railway for the trains coming and going to Aberdeen at Maude until the 1970`s trains either went to Peterhead or Fraserburgh from this station, there is still a preserved prison train carriage here, this was used to transport prisoners from the big jail at Peterhead out to make them work in the quarries, It was the first state-owned passenger carrying railway in Britain; a product of Victoriana which ferried criminals to a place of hard labour in the north-east of Scotland. it is more than 50 years since the closure of the Peterhead Prison railway, the service, which was operational for the prison from 1888, The train operators constructed a gate, which used to open between the prison and Admiralty Yard, when researching it I seen some evocative old images of the prisoners being marched off to their daily grind, whatever the weather conditions, to carry out often back-breaking work, the convicts would be transported daily to the quarry and back on this train, it saddened me to think what our society must have been like then, just imagining myself getting sentenced for what in my case would probably some sort of environmental or civil liberties campaign, where some power mad policeman would whack me with a lead filled truncheon, then when I fought back it would be aff to peterheid for twenty years hard labour, I know people who would like to see a return to those days!
I wasn’t going to jail thankfully! Neither was I going to Peterhead I was cycling on to Ellon happily, for a couple of reasons? Firstly I was back on the NCN1 route with a millennium post at the still named station bar Inn to welcome me, it has a wee poem on it saying - the station hotel Maud welcomes you from the track, rest well and haste ye back, secondly; somewhere along this cycle I would be meeting a buddy, colin would be joining me for a bit of cycling and some banter, the first proper friends company that I had been in since many weeks ago on Orkney, with big countries best off tunefully playing on my headphones as I merrily cycled, it was very uplifting music to an already joyous day, I never put headphones in when I am on roads and rarely when likely to be required to be alert to other path users, or when likely to be back on a road at any moment, this was different a totally traffic free path, I could even sing along disturbing no` one, this also stopped me having yet another conversation with don kenjo I was getting sick of his moans! YES by then I had begun to hold proper conversations with myself, at one point I even caught my mind saying don kenjo we BOTH know this hill is gonna be longer than it looks,
The approaching cyclist stopped when I seen him? sure enough true to his word it was colin what a legend, it was great to see him and I told him so as we shook hands, something I Immediately then asked if he was ok with shaking hands in these crazy covid times? He had no issues with this, we then preceded to chat happily about what everyone we mutually knew and kept in touch with was up to, all the way to Ellon where I had been looking forward to getting to for weeks, this was a long-awaited planned treat for me a visit to the centre of my universe Brewdog HQ
Colin knew this whole area extremely well having cycled driven worked and lived all around this neck of the woods, with him as my guide we took the direct route through town to the industrial estate on the outskirts that is home to my favourite brewers HQ, I have a few favourites but brewdog spearheads a revolution in my society which I love, this was my second visit here so I had my brewdog passport already stamped (another of my box ticking agendas) the overworks bar was shut I wondered if that was permanent? The main bar had moved location and was much bigger, what a truly awesome place there’s even a beer museum
What a fantastic lunch I had there they have great vegan choices, I was loathed to leave seriously considering finding a spot nearby to camp for the night, But (there’s nearly always a but) it was still reasonably early in the day and after a couple of pints colin still had to cycle home anyway, his home was further down the route I would be following we reluctantly eventually dragged ourselves away, Bruce had been hopeful of joining us here after his work, I had to text him to say we would no longer be there at that time of night
It was then back onto the Formartine and Buchan way for us to cycle another few mile together, to a place called Newmachar where me and colin would part, here he pulled an ace out his sleeve? Ok not his sleeve but From his under-saddle tool bag he pulled out two whisky miniatures bought from his nearest distillery Glen Garioch, both me and colin while at work were regulars at whisky club, a band of brothers (we only ever had one lady join us) dedicated to meeting up together for a whisky tasting session at least once each working trip, we had our toast, I have a few of these which became popular at whisky club meetings, a happy parting to a great meet up slainte colin twas braw,
Arriving in Dyce right at the train station which was also where colin had done a wee search and got me a cheap room for the night, I had prebooked this station side B&B room while having a beer at brewdog it was right at the station with a millennium post on its wall, locking the daunder up at the front door I had been sent an email with a code to gain entry, a quick shower then it was into the train station chip shop for a fish supper,
This was nowhere near my first visit to Dyce I had been here countless times due to working in oil and gas, the towns surrounded with industrial estates where various courses are held for the industry, it sits right at the airport although on the wrong side of the runway from the entrance making it a distance to get to the departure gates, which is a shame for the train station as it would be ideal if you were coming here only to fly out, of the train and on the plane! Sadly, this is not the case if you’re flying out of Aberdeen your better to get off the train in Aberdeen then getting the bus to the airport, the appropriately named JET 727 bus to be precise, the days of getting this bus and flying out of Aberdeen are gone for me now, it’s a new chapter of my life and a pledge to be flight free for 2021
Right next to the train station is the spiders web this bar is well known in the circles I worked in, most of my ex colleagues and friends that worked or are still working in the oil industry have been to the spiders for a pint, if they were like the previous version of me probably a cheese toastie with that pint at some point in their career, as a point of clarification I’ve never had a career in that industry it has always to me just been a job, the spiders had plenty space for folk, I could just walk in the lounge I could easily also have gotten a seat in a new big marque in the beer garden, the bar looked busy though, the lounge was busy also with mostly the easily identifiable (for me) oil workers, they would look at me sitting alone no kit bag dressed in the clothing of an outdoors enthusiast and know I wasn’t one of them! I was looking at them and pondering this, partially sadly as I had lost an identity there is something about the job you do that people attach your identity to, in the end I decided I was happy with this, I had actually wanted to be rid of that identity for at least a year probably much longer, so why should it now briefly make me sad? It was because I no longer felt I belonged I guessed, then I took a sip out of my pint of real ale smiled and pondered my new identity, which is probably the enemy of the group I formerly belonged to, this tickled me perhaps this environmental campaigning hippy (or is it? hippy crit!) should get into a bun fight with these planet killing oil workers just for the craic, I didn’t of course, these guys like I once was are only storm troopers for an evil empire
Instead, I just asked them where they worked? Turns out they had just helicoptered of a rig that day, they were having a few pints with one of their colleagues who was on this evening taking the happy train home from his last trip off shore, this brought a flood of happy memories to me of my many days on the happy train home
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