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Today's ride was on home turf, practically, as we were riding roads we frequented when we lived in Dundee for a decade.  We returned to Dundee via Caputh, Coupar Angus, Newtyle and Muirhead, followed by a frantic ride through Dundee to the Tay Bridge.  Because we reached Dundee around mid-day, the traffic was reasonably light, and we had no real issues.

35.64 miles; 10.7 mph ave; 27.2 mph max; 3:18:04; total distance 523.33 miles

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No Photos today!

Return to Day 9 - Aviemore to Birnam

We spent just about all of today on Cycle Route 7.  We had a few light showers between Aviemore and Kingussie, but really the day was dry with many sunny spells.

Setting out from Aviemore, we chose not to ride initally on route 7, as this would have added 4 or 5 miles - instead we chose a more direct B road.  Kingussie looks more like a "real Scottish town than does Aviemore - it has a main street lined with older stone-built properties.  Route 7 works pretty well as far as Dalwhinnie (notable mostly it seems to me for an elegant distillery building - and presumably the distillery within!). 

From Dalwhinnie, the A9 rises to the Drumochter Pass, and I guess that there's just not much room for a major cycle route.  For most of the rest of the route as far as Calvine, route 7 consists of sections of old road (presumably older versions of the A9), linked by sections of purpose-built cycle path.  Both are variable in quality, and it remains to be seen how well they are maintained in future years.  The cycle path sections can be quite narrow at times. Overall, I'd say it wouldn't be a good idea to try route 7 here on a lightweight set of road tyres - our tandem was shod with invulnerable (touch wood) 32mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus touring tyres - and a bike with suspension would certainly ease neck and back ache!

The route moves pretty definitively onto regular B roads at Calvine - a short while later, we reached the House of Bruar old person's emporium.  here we stopped for lunch in the form of excellent mushroom soup.  And bought some presents for people.  Then it was off through the interestingly laid out Blair Atholl, which looks very much like a planned estate, then on through wooded countryside (we saw no red squirrels, alas) to Pitlochry.  By this stage, we'd pretty much decided to press on to Dunkeld.

As seems quite usual for cycle routes, it was rather difficult to spot sign for the continuation of route 7 in town.  Eventually, we did find one, a sign pointing us in the direction of Logierait (which lies between Ballinluig and Aberfeldy, and through which we'd cycled on day 1).  We took this road, which proved to be the most delightful section of road all day.  It took us up and down hills, past fields, woods and meadows, all the way down to the main road to Ballinluig.

From Ballinluig, it was back to the roadside cyclepath along the A9, ducking low hanging branches, until the route once again assumes a proper road, climbing up a fairly steep hill to descend once more into Dunkeld. We didn't see much in the way of B & B accommodation in Dunkeld, so we nipped over the bridge over the river Tay (designed by Thomas Telford) to Birnam, where we found a very pleasant B & B.  Once showered, we popped over to Dunkeld for dinner at the Atholl Arms Hotel.  Despite it's slightly shabby appearance, our meal was top notch, and thus fortified, we went on to explore Dunkeld.

In all the years I cycled around Dundee, I never looked around Dunkeld.  It turns out to have many interesting places to explore, from the cathedral by the river, to the restored housing around it.  The cathedral is still partly used as a church, and while we were their a bunch of trainee bell-ringers were getting their first try at real bell-ringing - most of the time they seemed pretty good, to my untutored ears at least.  Back over in Birnam, we went to look at the Birnam Oak, reputedly the last tree remaining from the original Birnam Forest, made famous by Shakespeare's Macbeth.  It's an impressively big tree, although it's so old it's held up by a variety of props (see picture to right).

It was with some relief however to finally hit the sack today, as my back and shoulders had really taken a bit of a pummelling steering the loaded tandem down route 7.  Still, from Birnam it would be a relatively short day's cycling to return to Tayport and bring our tour to a close.

72.19 miles; 10.8 mph ave; 33.5 mph max; 6:38:39; total distance 487.69 miles

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Photo Gallery (only two photos today)

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Jump to Day 10 - Birnam to Tayport

Return to Day 8 - Black Isle to Aviemore 

On another fair day, we began by traversing the Black Isle, first through mixed arable farmland, and then mixed woodland.  This involved a surprising amount of climbing.  We eventually picked up cycle route 1 (for Inverness) at Munlochy.

This proved to be quite a circuitous route, and eventually led us under the A9 to cross the Kessock Bridge on a path alongside the northbound carriageway! Unfortunately, this deposited us in a huge industrial estate, among huge articulated lorries. We extricated oursleves by ignoring any cycle route signs, unfortunately, this led us to take cycle paths which required us to cross busy dual carriageways.

Eventually, we found signs for Route 7 (Pitlochry), which led us through suburban streets and up some very steep roads, eventually emerging near the Culloden Visitor Centre. This was a bit fraught due to the near complete inadequacy of the signage for the route.  We had a cup of tea in a pub just down the road from the Culloden Visitor Centre,which calmed our rather frayed nerves. From here, route 7 was reasonably pleasant, even if it involved considerable climbing. We stopped to visit the fascinating Clava Cairns, which are neolithic burial chambers.

This was a bit of a bonus, and the Clava cairns was not a site I'd heard of previously - we only came across them because of Cycle Route 7, so this warmed my opinions of cycle routes after the Inverness fiasco.  These cairns date to about 2000BC, and appear to have been used more than once - latterly, they acquired stone circles around them.  Two of the larger cairns have long entrance passageways that align with the midwinter sun - you can see one of these in the picture.

Pressing on, we reached the point where route 7 runs alongside the A9.  Here it becomes a mixture of cycle path and (largely disused) roads. This is a pretty good mix, although at one point, cyclists are required to cross the A9...

After rather more than 50 miles, we eventually rolled into Aviemore, and decided to call it a day.  We had originally intended to get as far as Kingussie (which it's probably fair to say is a rather more appealing town than Aviemore, but the route 7 and the shenanigans traversing Inverness had taken a bit longer than expected.

53.32 miles; 9.9 mph ave; 36.1 mph max; 5:22:17; total distance 415.15 miles

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Photo Gallery

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Jump to Day 9 - Aviemore to Birnam

Return to Day 7 - Lochcarron to Black Isle

Up bright and early, with lovely blue sky with puffy white clouds scudding across! Set off eastwards, initially flat, but then climbing through woodland, with plenty of rhododendrons.  After a while, we emerged onto rather bare mountainous landscape.

We reached Achnasheen at about 11.30am, and stopped at the cafe for paninis and tea. Pressing on, we eventually started a gentle descent through woodland. We were aware of big black clouds, and as we approached the main road to Inverness at Gorstan, we had the first proper drenching of the tour so far. It was fortunately quite short-lived, as the rain was pretty cold!

It was with some relief that we approached the Black Isle - it's a much gentler agricultural scene, and also, our destination was that much closer - an old friend of Carol's from the past. She was a most excellent host! [annoyingly, the GPS data logger ran out of juice during the day, so the map is incomplete]

59.68 miles; 10.8 mph ave; 36.6 mph max; 5:30:48; total distance 361.83 miles

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Only one picture in the gallery today:

Jump to Day 08 - Black Isle to Aviemore

Return to Day 06 - Broadford to Lohcarron