Thursday – Balblair & Kinlochewe

Weather: sunny rainy sunny

Miles:  19.11 + 15.72

Looking out of the window revealed mist and more mist, but as we drove out it became clear that it was just temporarily hanging over the waters of the Kyle Of Sutherland and the rest of the world was getting blue skies. The night before we’d discovered there were two trail centres I’d never heard of in the local area a short red route at the castle (which we didn’t bother with) and a black route on the other side of the river at Balblair. Not wanting to miss the opportunity we decided to hit Balblair before heading off west for the rest of the week.

Morning mist

The best way to describe Balblair is a one hill Kirroughtree with better views and without the really difficult bits. A bit of a dull initial climb soon took us out onto lumpy white bedrock for some undulating technical fun (providing you followed the arrows), surrounded by Scots Pines and views across sunny Sutherland.

Up

Picturesque

Down

Kyle of Sutherland and Carbisdale Castle

From the top of the hill it was back down to the cars via more bedrock and some twisty forest fun. Short but ever so sweet, and worth another lap if we didn’t have to get across the country for the afternoon’s entertainment.

More trees and rock

We loaded up and set off for Kinlochewe, stopping to look at the seals in the Cromarty Firth. As we drove west the sunshine was replaced with forboding greyness and bigger mountains, we stopped for lunch enroute but didn’t last long before we were chased back into the cars by hungry midges. We reached Kinlochewe early afternoon and unloaded ourselves into the bunkhouse.

Cromarty Firth seals

The afternoon’s entertainment was cakes and walking for Dawn, Fi and Andrea and a short ride for the rest of us. By the time we set off riding the sun was out again, we took the express estate road to the Heights of Kinlochewe, struggled to get our bikes over a high deer gate only to find there was a nice stile round the corner, then headed up the stiff climb of Gleann na Muice.

Struggling

Climb

At the top end of the valley track a fine bit of new single and a half track took us into the wilds, with distracting views of Slioch and the peaks of Letterewe Forest.

New track

The newness petered out at a gate and the trail became more challenging and much more fun, undulating its rocky way towards Lochan Fada. By the time we reached the beach some weather had come in so we donned waterproofs (which have a dual function as midgeproofs), very atmospheric.

On the beach

At this point I said ‘there must be a catch’ and indeed there was, a boggy trudge round the shore of the lochan in intermittent sunshine and showers (of rain and midges) followed by a wade through the outflow (very clear and very cool but no midges) and a drag up the flank of the hill to 400m (more midges).

Lochan Fada

Since I’d borrowed this route from day 1 of a tour company’s itinerary I expected the downhill to be easy and pleasant. It turned out to be a rockfest clinging to the steep side of Gleann Bianasdail until the valley opened out for the final section through the bracken to Loch Maree. There were plenty of ridey bits, but plenty of scary bits which spoilt the flow but gave more opportunity to admire the rock architecture.

Gleann Bianasdail

Rock

By the time we reached the loch the sun had come out again (maybe it had been sunny here all along). I was expecting a nice easy spin back admiring the views, but it turned out to be more hard work, winding through bracken, meadows, rock gardens and stream crossings. Eventually we reached civilisation again and span back to the bunkhouse.

Slioch

Whilst tea was being lovingly prepared Paul decided to remove the shock from his frame as it was knocking a bit, but couldn’t find one of the spacers when it came to putting it back together… so that evening’s entertainment was methodically raking through gravel looking for a shiny spacer whilst getting eaten by midges, we never found it.

Mmmidges

The night was another culinary success story featuring a tasty apple and blackberry sponge (which the quiet old bloke who was sharing the bunkhouse with us had to watch us eat), then there was the 7 real ales to make a start on in the pub next door.

Wednesday – Golspie

Weather: sunshiney day

Miles:  10.16 (and another two thirds of a lap for the boys)

After breakfast we had a trip to Tescos to buy supplies for the trip into the wilderness then set off up north in convoy. The journey was quite interesting with seals and interesting bits of oil industry hardware in the Cromary Firth. After an hour and a bit we reached Golspie and parked up at the trail head in the town centre.

Golspie

Golspie is pretty short but doesn’t have much fireroad. The climb wiggles up for ages then rears up in the “lactic ladder” which isn’t too bad if you don’t go too slow.

Climbing through the trees

Lactic ladder

The only real bit of fireroad gets you to the top of the hill where there is an excuse for a shelter for lunch.

The top

There's also an interesting folly/monument and some free binoculars so you can check that nobody has nicked your car.

I can see the sea

The downhill starts off swoopy and gets progressively scarier and rockier, thankfully there was always a chicken line for people like me but it wasn’t always on the same side of the blind summits. Lower down there were a lot more slower speed obstacles and some challenging switchbacks before the trail turned into a red grade speedway, complete with a hidden pit of death that everyone only realised they’d flown over after they landed safely on the other side.

Down to the seaside

Tricky corner

We were soon back at the bottom so the boys went for another lap (well almost a lap, we didn’t go quite to the top) and the girls went for coffee and cake.

Cake...

...or death

Since this was the rest day we decided to go on a hunt for ice cream in the city of Dornoch. All we could find was Mr Whippy style rubbish, not the nice looking stuff the school kids were parading round (back at school in mid August!), eventually we accosted a gang and they pointed us to a very fine ice cream shop that met our demanding requirements (apart from the lack of chocolate plug at the bottom of the chocolate covered waffle cone). After our ice creams we had a pleasant drive down the Dornoch Firth to our accommodation for the night, Carbisdale Castle.

Carbisdale Castle SYHA

It’s more a turn of the century stately home than a castle, gifted to the SYHA by a handsome fellow (according to the girls) in the 70s. The place was falling to bits in places, had some dodgy plumbing, involved a massive hike between the rooms and the kitchen and didn’t have enough cookers for all the guests, although to its credit it had things most hostels don’t have like a statue gallery, leather sofas and a haunted room (which the girls ended up in). The night’s feasting was a glorious spread courtesy of Julia, followed by a stroll across the river to a very dark bar complete with bagpipe fusion soundtrack.

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.

Monday – Tomintoul to Braemar

Weather: grey

Miles:  35.04

We headed down the road to last night’s pub for breakfast, but the door was locked so we had to look hungrily through the window at the B&B people gorging themselves until one of them took pity and let us in. Trainwreck popped by to bid us farewell and gave Tom some homemade whisky barrel shaped valve caps as he’d got a puncture when we met them the day before. Once we’d paid up according to the random and cheap pricing structure (I think it only existed in the barmaids head) we popped back to the hostel and readied our steeds, the wardens even came out to see us off! The Scots may claim to be inventors of many clever things but they’re not so good at street signs, this did give us the opportunity to get a piccy of Paul on “Firemans Lane”.

Fireman Paul

The first stretch of the ride was an easy spin up Glen Avon, starting on tarmac with an accidental detour which unfortunately people noticed, including some confusing automatic gates that didn’t want to open, so we went through the side gate, at which point they decided to open then didn’t show any sign of closing. We left them open after the farm boy told me they were automatic.

Glen Avon

Glen Avon continued for many miles, at Inchrory we passed the sissy track to Braemar and headed into the unknown on a good landrover track, weaving up and down the hillside above the river. We saw a few groups of rich people in 4x4s along the way, including some fishermen standing in the river; I think they were probably surprised to see bikers in “their” valley.

More Glen Avon

It was lunchtime before we got to the end of the track at Faindouran Lodge although I managed to choose an unbreezy spot and the midges herded us onwards after one sandwich.

The path thins...

... goes up...

... you can even ride a bit

The way became increasingly difficult with a boggy track weaving round a sea of stones. It was much easier to ride off piste then try and follow the tyre tracks through the bog. The valley thinned until the track was forced up the side, meaning we had a bit of pushing. Before I expected it the track became rideable again, clinging to the steep sides, soon the valley opened out again to reveal the shelter at the Fords of Avon and a bit more pushing. We lazed around the midge free shelter for a while then had a cool wade through the fords.

Fords Of Avon

Our destination was the Lairig an Laoigh, only 40m or so climb over a few km, which I told everyone would be rideable. The track started off OK, a bit boggy and some challenging boulder hopping moves, eventually the boulders got a big bigger and we had to get off and drag the bikes, reminiscent of the horrors of the Lairig Ghru. Thankfully it didn’t last long and the last stretch to the col was rideable, revealing the expanse of Glen Derry.

Lairig an Laoigh

As promised the downhill was rideable (if you didn’t have drainage ditch fear) and got more flowy lower down. As the gradient eased the trail got faster with drainage ditches compete with bike friendly bypasses.

Upper Glen Derry

The trail forked and we crossed over the river, climbed a wee bit then hit a little slice of gnarly, rooty, rocky, twisty singletrack downhill heaven through the Scots pines (on this section I didn’t have time to fear the drainage ditches). The fun continued until we dropped into the back of Derry Lodge.

Glen Derry singletrack

To finish the day we picked up a few miles of express fireroads (with a cheeky climb) to take us to the road. From the road it was a few miles to Braemar via the rather posh Mar Lodge and Victoria Bridge.

Mar Lodge

In town we met up with Dawn and set to some coffee drinking outside a posh hotel in the town centre hotel whilst we were waiting for the bunkhouse to open, the sight of Andrea and Julia all covered in slart caused one woman to pull a classic face of disgust. The bunkhouse was all ours for the night and nicely appointed. Dawn had brought all sorts of edible goodies for us from work and was cooking for the ladies so the rest of us searched town for somewhere nice for tea and ended up in a twee tea shop with a good selection of bottled ale. None of the pubs served proper beer so we all ended up in a hotel bar drinking John Smiths with the Shearings brigade.