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Well that was quite a trip. Rode in with Madame IWRATS from Taynuilt to the spartan Narrachan bothy in Glen Kinglass on Thursday afternoon and stayed the night there. She turned back in the morning and I ploughed on over the watershed to Glen Orchy and on to my camp site in Gleann Murrain above Loch Lyon. I was too knackered to make the extra climb to the Taigh nam Bodach, but the Old Man was very present in the whole glen.
On Saturday morning on the way north from Loch Rannoch the kingpin of the trailer snapped, requiring a bit of field ingenuity to progress to Duinish bothy where Madame was to cycle in from the A9 end for a cozy night with a few beers round a blazing fireplace.
After slithering down the A9 cycle path a few kilometres on Sunday morning I took on the quite awful Gaick Pass, as forbidding and unwelcoming a place as you could find in our country. If you're going to fall off the bike on this trip then the place not to do it is on the slope of An Dùn - the Fortress. So that's exactly where I catapulted myself over the handlebars and down the rocky slope to the loch's edge. Properly frightening. Once over that and through the infinitely long Glen Tromie on the other side the rain came on in the way you see in Vietnam war films. My shoes filled up and camping at Feshie Bridge was a survival exercise as much as anything.
Next day was gorgeous, through Inshriach and Rothiemurcus and over the Ryvoan pass to Abernethy. Surely the most beautiful part of Scotland. Camped in a meadow above Castle Grant with a view over the northern Cairngorms. Tuesday was a hack along the wilder than expected Dava Way, stopping at Altyre Estate to see friends, then down through suburban Forres and along the hippy cycle way to Findhorn where Madame was waiting with the automobile.
The experiences, the people, the thoughts and the feelings encountered along the way won't really fit in a post here, but I'll say this; If you have a cycle expedition you fancy then just get on with it. I really can't see how time spent on a bicycle regardless of bruises, cuts, bites, cold or wet could ever be regretted looking back at the end of life which is surely the perspective we should all aim for? Bicycle adventures are an unalloyed good.
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