Tuesday – Braemar to Blair Athol

Weather: grey then sunny then grey

Miles:  37.21

The final day dawned to the pitter patter of rain on the window, although it had stopped by the time we had finished breakfast and never really started again despite the dismal forecast I’d been dreading.

Braemar Lodge

The first leg was an easy road spin to the Linn of Dee, which came complete with a Shearings coachload of grannies. We were soon off into the wilds again, with quite a bit of stony estate track to eat up the miles.

River Dee

Near Bynack Lodge we started to retrace Day 1’s route through the fords towards the Allt Garbh Guidhe ravine and Glen Tilt. It threatened to rain so we pulled on our coats whilst stopped for a mechanical, but we needn’t have bothered.

Near Bynack Lodge

The singletrack through the ravine was slightly easier with a downhill gradient but still testing in places. Towards the bottom I lay my bike down by the junction we needed to take and went back to take photos. Unfortunately Andy didn’t hear my “stop at my bike” instruction (too busy holding on and steering) and shot off down to the end of the track with Tom and Paul, fortunately Andrea heard me and led the girls down the right track. Whilst fetching back the boys I noticed the girls seemed to have missed the track and were heading up a sheep track so had to shout at them too. Tom was on a mission to get back to Mandy so he didn’t come back and continued down Glen Tilt for an early finish.

Allt Garbh Buidhe again

The rest of us had a stiff grassy climb towards Fealar Lodge with lunch near the top.

Climb to lunch

It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere but shortly after lunch the lodge appeared in all its pink painted glory, it must be around 15 miles to the nearest road.

Fealar Lodge

We headed off down the mega driveway and over a pass, complete with an authentic ginger bearded Scotsman out shooting in his kilt. Once over the pass there was a smooth downhill to Daldhu, ticking of yet more miles.

Fealar Lodge driveway

From Daldhu we headed up Glen Loch (of Loch Loch fame). The track is quite rough by estate road standards and has some nasty little uphills as it winds its way up and down the glen wall.

Glen Loch

Soon enough we came to the foot of our final climb, a pleasant grassy affair round the side of the hill with Beinn a’Ghlo towering to our right. Since we were nearly done and it was too breezy for midges we had a good lie down at the top whilst I replaced a spoke.

Top of the last climb

After a bit of updulating the final singletrack started, all very pleasant. After the best bit was over the obvious track suddenly disappeared and we had to use our bushcraft skills to pick up some other bike tracks winding their way through the heather to where the path appeared again on the other side of a ford.

Last singletrack

Some unexpected undulations followed (they were unexpected last time I did this route) but it didn’t take too long to get to the road at Loch Moraig and lose far too much hard won altitude on tarmac back to the cars.

Bed for the night was 45 miles north in Aviemore but the ladies had to go on an epic trip via Braemar to pick up Dawn’s car. Aviemore hostel is nice enough but a bit impersonal after Tomintoul and Braemar. Unfortunately a dirty smelly old man had also decided to stay there for the night, he took quite a fancy to Fi and despite stinking like something had died in his pants he managed to get the other guests to make him a cup of tea, save him from microwaving his pies still in the plastic tray and wash his plates for him. The running joke all night was that we were going to find him in our room when we got back from the pub, thankfully he wasn’t and I’m glad we weren’t the person who got his bed the next night. We did overhear the warden telling him the next morning that people might want to talk to him more if he paid more attention to his personal hygiene.