Burn o' Vat – An Ice-Age Cauldron and Lunch at the Fish Shop
A few hours.
The route
The Burn o' Vat is a great round cauldron of granite hidden up a burn in the Muir of Dinnet, carved out at the end of the last ice age.
It's a favourite with children, and adults enjoy the scramble in too. Lunch is seafood at the Fish Shop in Ballater.
The day
Deeside
A morning up the Vat Burn near Dinnet, then a long lunch along the road in Ballater.
About three hoursAbout 0.5 miles on foot
Burn o’ Vat
An attraction
Park at the Burn o' Vat car park on the B9119 west of Dinnet, where the reserve asks for a voluntary contribution by card or RingGo. An easy path follows the Vat Burn upstream for about 500 metres to the Vat. Step over the stones in the burn and squeeze through the gap in the boulders. Inside is a granite bowl about 18 metres across, with a floor of red gravel and the burn falling in at the far side. Swirling meltwater ground it out as the last ice sheet melted, and the outlaw Gilderoy is said to have hidden here with his band. Wear boots: the stones are slippery and wet feet are likely. Coming back, a path climbs the side of the glen to a viewing platform over Loch Kinord, then drops to the car park.
More about Burn o’ Vat11 min by car
Fish Shop Restaurant
Lunch
It's 11 minutes' drive west on the A93 to Ballater. The Fish Shop is on Netherley Place, a short walk from the council's free car park on Church Square. It's a seafood restaurant with a fishmonger next door, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The menu changes daily with the catch from day boats. Lunch is from noon to 2.15pm. Children are welcome, with a menu of their own.
More about Fish Shop Restaurant
If it rains
The path is fine in a waterproof, but after heavy rain the stepping stones can be under water and the Vat can't be entered: then keep to the path and the viewing platform. Lunch is indoors.
On the way
- Tullich Kirkyard and its carved stones
The roofless Tullich Kirk stands in a round walled kirkyard beside the A93, just before Ballater, on the site of a chapel said to have been founded by St Nathalan in the 600s. A purpose-built shelter beside the church holds carved stones found in and around it, most cut with crosses, among them a Pictish symbol stone. Pull into the layby beside the kirkyard, with care on a fast road.
Bridge House Café, a café in Ballater.
Photographs by Jake B, Michał Ptaszyk and Fish Shop Restaurant, Ballater via Google