We paid another £6 for day parking then set off on our walk. It was very sunny and warm in the morning, and our plans was to do the Cairnwell 3, three Munros situated on the west side of the Cairnwell Pass.
It's only a 275 metre ascent up Càrn Aosda (917 metres), and we were at the summit before 10am.
We then walked along the ridge to the furthest Munro, Càrn a' Gheòidh (975 metres). It was starting to cloud over at this point.
Up to this now we'd seen a golden eagle, two red deer in the distance, and a mountain hare as we sat down for our lunch.
On the way back it got very grey and dark, and a thunderstorm started. The lightning wasn't particularly close by, but there was very little wind and the storm wasn't moving away very quickly. We decided it would be best not to continue to the third Munro, Cairnwell (933 metres), and we made our way back down to the car park. On the way down we saw lots of frogs which had come out in the rain.
We drove on to Ballater to have a walk round the shops, but when we got there we discovered that its Highland Games was on, which had literally just been rained off because of a rain/hailstorm. We did park in the centre and bought what we needed at the shops, but decided to move on as it was very busy.
Next we tried a camping spot at Clarack Farm. It wasn't really a very attractive place, and the ticket machine didn't take cards, so we decided not to stay.
Instead we went to the Burn o'Vat visitor centre car park in the Dinnet National Nature Reserve. This is a very nice place in the forest, with room for 6 campervans to stay at £10 per night (24 hours).
We went for a short stroll in the woods, then later for dinner we had pasta with garlic and herb cheese and pancetta.
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