The Goukstane, Bennachie

On Saturday we went for a family walk at Bennachie, a range of hills nearby to us. It is ranked the no. 1 activity to do in Aberdeen and is right on our doorstop - we are very lucky to have such an amazing landscape and lovely walks so accessible to us.  We have barely scratched the surface of them - there is a whole network of paths to explore and so far we have only tried a couple.

We started off doing the easiest walk which is the Discovery Trail aimed at children and wheelchair users; it has lovely little rubbing posts along the way for children to make rubbings but I had forgotten our paper and crayons which was a bit annoying.

Strong-willed and fearless, Little refused to go into the pushchair we had brought along for her, and walked for ages, completely surprising us! She is a really fast little walker and very determined. She doesn't want us to hold her hand and won't stop still for a photo for us. She looks so precarious walking; her little feet turn in and she looks like she might stumble any moment but she doesn't.

She walked even longer than Poppet managed to! Poppet flaked first, requesting to go into the pushchair. 

Poppet admitting defeat

Along the way I searched for nearby geocaches using the app on my phone. We hadn't been geocaching yet this year but are really looking forward to finding lots more in 2014. It is really great for extending a walk, making you spend more time enjoying the outdoors together as a family, and making it a little bit exciting (I am always so excited when we eventually find the geocache and open it!). We chose one near to us (there were loads!), and followed the compass, taking us off the Discovery trail.

I had brought along a little picnic for a mid-morning snack so we stopped at a bit where there were lots of tree stumps from tree felling and found a nice big one. Poppet insisted on having a 'chair and a table' on her stump. We had Babybels, bananas, a chocolate santa and some unidentified chocolates along with some juice.

Our picnic

My sister is a teacher and as such receives lots of gifts at the end of the term from grateful pupils; a lot of these gifts are wine and chocolates neither of which she is that keen on so she passes them on to me. The unidentified chocolates were one of these gifts. Poppet seemed really keen on them. She called them 'snowballs' and was very reluctant to share, swap or relinquish hold of the bag. Even for the chocolate santa. It was only later when we tried one that we realised that they were 'boozy' chocolates. Oooops.

Enjoying our picnic

After the picnic Poppet had some energy and went back to walking. I was in charge of the compass and we went the wrong way. A few times. We nearly gave up but eventually Dada and Poppet went off-road on their own to find the Goukstane while I pushed Little in the buggy on the main path to get her to sleep. And success! The teamwork of father and daughter found it and called us over.

Goukstane is Scots for 'Cuckoo stone' and it's a large boulder which according to legend is visited by the first cuckoo to return to Bennachie after spending the winter in Africa (this info was all available on my Geocaching App., so that's another big advantage of geocaching, you learn about your local area too!). Our geocache was hidden near it, cleverly tucked away in the roots of a tree under some large pieces of bark. Poppet had the honour of retrieving it. Little was on her way to the land of nod after all of her walking!

We filled in our name and the date in the log book and Poppet chose a treasure. I tried to influence her to choose a lovely looking realistic plastic caterpillar but she would have none of it and went with a little pink pen with some sparkle. She loves it.

Near the Goukstane there was a wall with words carved into the stones and one stone made to look like an egg with a crack through it. Poppet spotted it straight away -'an egg!', but it wasn't until I read the description of the cache again on my phone that I realised she was right.

'

The wall reads 'The Calling of the Gouk Is the Other Side of Spring

Poppet spotted an 'A' in one of the stones - "Look it's my A!" which made her very pleased.

Poppet's A

We finished off the Discovery Trail with Poppet on Dada's shoulders and Little fast asleep in the buggy.


Poppet: 3yrs
Little: 16 mos