Sunday – Kingussie to Tomintoul

Weather: sunny sunny sunny

Miles: 49.72

8 Weetabix may have been a bit excessive, but I was hungry. We started the day by retracing our steps to near Drumguish and taking an old farm track into the forest and picking up the fireroad past Corarnstilbeg back into Glen Feshie. At Ballintean we picked up some unexpectedly pleasant singletrack down by the river towards Feshiebridge.

River Feshie

Along this track Paul’s crank started falling off so we waited in the sunshine, grazing on a massive patch of wild raspberries.

Raspberries near Feshiebridge

From Feshiebridge we took fireroads through the forest and popped out onto the more rugged track across the moor, stopping for a nosy in the bothy (which had a trailer bike parked in it). From the bothy the track thins and wiggles past Loch Gamhna to Loch an Eilein, very pleasant and hard to believe me Fi and Paul were skiing around this forest over New Year. Paul’s crank was now falling off with regularity so we made the sensible decision to divert to Bothy Bikes, conveniently located a few miles off route on the outskirts of Aviemore. The heroic mechanic swapped Paul’s crank arm for one out of the bits box (only 5mm difference in length) and we were off back into Rothiemurchus forest. About this point we had already done over 20 miles…

Inshriach

During our quick lunch (the midges found us) the bikers we had seen yesterday passed by and said hello. After crossing the Cairngorm Club Footbridge we climbed up to Rothiemurchus lodge and picked up the boggy traverse to the Lairig Ghru path (I’m sure this was more rideable last time). At this point there was some murmuring in the ranks, as I’d promised this was the easy day and about 25 miles but we were only half way there. Thankfully the last few km of the Lairig Ghru is the best forest singletrack in the world (according to me) so there were smiles on faces again by the bottom.

Lairig Ghru

The next leg was a cruise through the forest to the Reindeer Centre (I wonder if people realise I accidently led them on a loop by the campsite). It was lovely and sunny so we lounged around a bit and refilled the camelbaks. The track to Ryvoan Bothy passes through a lovely little valley (which I have a picture of on my bedroom wall), complete with a surprise little azure pond where people were swimming.

Rothiemurchus Forest

At the bothy we came across the group of bikers we had seen yesterday and at lunchtime, this time we were more sociable and found out they were from Cleveland Ohio and doing a coast to coast (Fort William to Montrose) with a tour company, they were let loose on the trails each day with directions and a GPS and got their bags carried between B&Bs, today they were heading for the same place as us. At some point during the conversation one of them (Billy/Trainwreck) said “are you the bogtrotters?”, turns out we’re internationally infamous, he then said “you must be Andrea”, turns out she’s internationally famous (and the rest of us aren’t).

CAMBA near Ryvoan

More forest roads and a ford (which the yanks had been told to avoid) took us to Loch a Chnuic (more people swimming) where we forded another river and picked up some hidden singletrack on the other side. This wound its way through the heather to Eag Mhor, a fine rocky defile that cuts between some hills and spits you out on the moor of the Braes of Abernethy.

Eag Mhor

After a moorland crossing we picked up the road to Dorback Lodge then climbed over the pass to Glen Brown on landrover tracks. Glen Brown has a flat bottom with a meandering brown river you have to ford at least half a dozen times before the trail climbs back out.

25 miles my arse

The last climb of the day led us to a fireroad descent to Kylnadrochit Lodge and a final few miles on the road into Tomintoul. Despite it being nearly 5pm on a Sunday afternoon the ice cream shop was still open and the lovely lady served us double cones, well deserved after the day’s marathon.

Sheds for every occasion

The youth hostel is small and clean and was being run by a volunteer warden couple who looked after us very well, even making sure our washing was brought in and shoes stuffed with paper in the drying shed. Tea in the pub was good and suitably stodgy, afterwards we had a chat with our US friends before we had to rush back for our 11pm curfew (the warden welcomed us in and locked the door).