third mini trip.

Spring finally arrived this week with warm days peaking around 15 degrees. Mid teen temperatures are not usually cause to celebrate but after a long chilly winter the sun felt wonderful. We packed up our gear and headed closer to home this time to start our cycle at Grantown on Spey. We planned on taking the Spey river cycle route and b- roads to Tomintoul and to return to Grantown the next day. This area borders the rugged Cairngorm mountains and the gentler pastures of the east coast.



The River Spey was wonderful to ride near. The path followed old train routes and often used the disused rail bridges. It's the source for most of Scotland's Whisky with all sizes of distillery's doted along its length. Its the peat darkening the water that gives the different whiskys their distinct taste. AS we rode we could smell the rich smokey flavor of the brewing getting stronger as we neared a distillery. It was quite strange to have such a distinctive and pleasant smell dominating large areas of country side and forest.

The snow still hid in the shade and clung to mountains but by the many busy streams trickling down the hills it showed it was finally clearing.

Our orienteering skills need seem help. We made a few wrong turns and had to back track. Our worst mistake came late in the day as we took a turned off on a b road based on a sign pointing to a village that we knew we needed to pass to get to Tomintoul. The road got rougher and rougher until after 10 miles or so it ended down a long muddy hill at a farm house.

The owner of the farm informed us the road we thought we were on was only about 500m away but on the other side of the river without any bridges except back the way we had came. The town indicated on the sign we had followed was marked correctly we were told, its just that there were two towns with that name one on each side of the river!
The farmer must have taken pity on us because he offered to ferry us over a fjord in the river with his tractor. We couldn't have been more grateful. It must have saved us about two hours by the time we had back tracked.
We had actually considered wading the river when they first mentioned the fjord but seeing the speed of the water from the melted snow ther was no way we would have tried it without the tractor. Thank you again kindly highland farmer!

We arrived in Tomintoul around seven and found this spot on the outskirts of town near a stream. It felt like a long ride ( I think we rode around 70km) because of the hills and after some cider from the local pub we slept soundly.

The next day we explored Tomintoul a bit had a milk shake and headed back to Granton on spey. The return journey although crossing steeper hills was much shorter and we were back for a lunch of soggy chips in Granton.

All in all our gear is holding up well for our planned European trip.