Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 35 on 15/11/2007.

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Aberdeen and Grampian: Wild country

Few areas offer as much variety to the rambler as Aberdeen and the Grampians . Whether it is history, scenery or even whisky, the region is unparalleled. Dominic Roskrow reports

The region stretching from Aberdeen on Scotland’s east coast and up to the north was recently described by British television personality Griff Rhys-Jones as among the most remote rural and mountainous regions of Britain. Add to this that it retains a direct link to its varied and evocative past, and the fact that it is a contradictory melting pot of warm and accommodating people and harsh and unforgiving terrain, and it makes for a very special region.

And if you are drawn to the great outdoors, well they do not get much greater than the Grampians and their immediate environs. For the walker it is a veritable paradise, a tangled fisherman’s net of paths criss-crossing each other and flipping back on themselves like the great salmon that populate the nearby River Spey. Indeed, the biggest problem that visitors face is deciding what to leave out and making sure that they manage to get to all the places they have highlighted. For this reason, it pays to spend a considerable period of time planning your journey. For while some other places have trails that logically go from A to B in a few miles, this region is a complicated dyslexic alphabet stretching from A to Z and passing every letter in between in no particular order.

But some semblance of discipline can be imposed by dividing the trails into broad categories. Let’s start with Scotch whisky. The region between Aberdeen and Inverness, and bordering the River Spey is known as Speyside, and it is the region where the fruiti.....

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By Dominic Roskrow

Section : Regional Focus

Page number : 31