VISITBALLATER
A circular route taking you along part of the Deeside Way and through some attractive woodland after crossing the historic Cambus o’ May suspension bridge.
Deeside Way section: Easy – wide, level firm path. Return route through woodland: Moderate – narrow and rough in places. Cambus o’May bridge: turnstiles at both ends, steps on right (south) bank. Can make access for disabled, prams and cycles difficult.
8 miles/12.5km (Allow 4.5 hours). Waymarking colour: PURPLE
Route
Starting at Station Square, head south-east along the main road (Bridge Street, A93) for 360m to the Royal Bridge.
Walk over the bridge to the South Deeside Road (B976).
Cross the road and take the footpath sloping up left (north-east) into the woods, marked with a fingerpost (towards Cambus o’ May).
At the next fingerpost, in 90m, ignore the track veering right towards Bridge of Muick, and continue north-east for a further 160m until you reach a junction with a forest track.
Turn left onto the forest track.
Continue north-east along the track for 900m, passing the site of the Dalmochie logging camp on your right, until you arrive at the South Deeside Road (B976).
Cross the road and turn right (north-east) along its pavement for 650m until a fingerpost directs you to veer left down a track.
Follow the track for 1km, at which point it narrows into a path.
Some 400m along the path you reach a high kissing gate, where the options are either to go through the gate and cross a field to a gate on the opposite side, or to bypass the field on the left. Your choice may depend on whether or not livestock are present in the field.
Once past the field by either route, continue on the path for 450m, remaining high above the river and working round the periphery of Glascorrie Farm’s fields before entering a forested area.
The path continues to wend its way through forest (part clear-felled), and broadens into a track before reaching a fingerpost after 1.2km.
Veer left off the track at the fingerpost and follow a path down through the trees. After 120m continue straight ahead onto a track which, in a further 850m, reaches the Cambus o’ May bridge over the Dee.
Cross the bridge to the north bank of the river and turn left onto the track of an old railway line which forms part of the Aberdeen to Ballater Deeside Way.
Continue on the Deeside Way (also waymarked as the Cambus o’ May Circular) all the way to your starting point at Station Square in Ballater (6km). The route is largely on the bed of a disused railway line, with a crossing of the main A93 road where extreme caution is needed.