Probably my penultimate post before the end of the walk - am back home briefly en route for another wedding and then will return to Glenshee on Monday for the final stretch. Having arranged to meet Gill on Mt Keen on the Saturday this should be a fiarly leisurely week, taking in the hills east of Glenshee, Mayar and Dreish then onto Lochnagar and finally Mt Keen. So with 270 summits climbed and 14 to go its looking pretty good for finishing, earthquakes or broken legs aside.

Lots of distinctive bits since my last posting. Extremely hot weather all the way round Glen Lyon, and some stunning days with early morning cloud in the valleys that lifted and burnt off during the mornings. Very hot and still in the afternoons though - highest fluid intake I think was about 7-8 litres in 1 day, which all went as sweat. Even resoted to a naked rambler ascent at one point (the hills are very quiet mideweek...).

A rest day in Pitlocchry - and we saw fish in the fish ladder, not just one but five including one huge one - is this a first?!

Unfortunately the theory of escaping the midges further east didn't quite work out, although conditions were almost perfect for them first thing in the morning.

Lots of cycling round Drumochter and some relatively uninteresting peaks - fortunately continued extremely fine weather made them pleasant strolls over high moorland rather than frustrating blundering around in the mist. Then onto the Cairngorms where the weather finally broke...Cairn Toul saw everything I was carryingbeing worn and even then not overly warm, drenched and staggering around in howling gale. However a rest day in Aviemore followed to dry out.

Friday and Paul Morris arrived from the London sleeper. It was harder than I had hoped to meet up with people on this trip, due to the through route nature, but a master plan had been worked out. After abandoning the bike for the duration at the Cairngorm ski centre, two days backpacking through the eastern Cairngorms took us to Derry Lodge and a rendezvouz with Gill for a barbeque. After a loop round Ben Macdui the following day Paul then got a lift out to Aberdeen station while I picked up my food parcel and headed back westwards.

Last week was then spent in the hills between Braemar and Blair Atholl. Straightforward hills, but tough walking to link together due to lack of paths (one 14 mile section without anything more than vague animal tracks) and abundance of deep heather. Also first (and probably only - another benefit of early start) encounter with stalking, but easy enough to avoid with only minimal route changes. A final two days of deterioating weather and I emerged at the Glenshee road yesterday with plenty of time to get out for this weekend. Which was good as the bus that was supposed to stop there didn't, leaving a final few miles of tarmac before obtaining a lift.