Jeff - you've beaten me to it again - always fancied a crack at Jura, look forward to the vid!
Anyway 6/6 for me and doublers in April and May....
Left the house at 12 on Sunday and pedalled west to Callander and north to Killin on the cycleway. The weather was a bit vague with odd spots of rain and quite a bit of cloud, no thunderstorms though! Heading up to Killin the sun came out and it looked like it was going to be a good one. Not quite as sitting in Killin eating tea I noted the large black clouds gathering over Ben Lawyers, unfortunately close to where I was going. Sure enough on leaving the town the heavens opened and the hour spent climbing over the Ben Lawyers road was done in the heavy then steady rain. It cleared on the climb out of Glen Lyon over to Rannoch and after a few more drops looked like a pleasant evening was on the cards. My stop for the night was near where I was for May bivvy 2, about halfway along the Old Road to the Isles which runs from Rannoch to Ossian.
The Old Corrour Lodge - formerly a hospital / hospice for TB sufferers - A more remote spot you'd be hard to find. Blackwater Res in the distance.
This evening also marked the return of the midges. It had been quite breezy until I set to pitching up, whereupon the wind died and the little beggars appeared in force. Later on the wind returned so I was able to strike camp without being chased away from this fine place.
Morning view
Breakfast number two was had in the Corrour station café then it was a steady but lengthy pedal out past the loch down to Fersit and then on to Spean Bridge via the East Highland Way. Fort Augustus and pizza was next. Ironically I was heading the other way up the Great Glen than usual but thanks to a north easterly still had a headwind. Fortunately most of the route is sheltered so no big deal. After pizza I continued north east via the new cycleway which parallels the road. Annoyingly its not actually open despite there being no signs to suggest this as at one point I ended up cycling through the Glen Crow Hydro-electric scheme base camp. Once its in it will be a nice alternative to the road which does see quite a lot of traffic. Its also a huge climb (30-350m) and not satisfied with that I continued further uphill via the South Loch Ness Trail.
Looking west towards Fort A and Kintail.
A mate put me onto this and its a quite a nice route with a good made path that seems like its not really being used despite lots of posh signs. Anyway I followed this for a few miles then ground along the road to Farr to pick up the wee road over the hills to Tomatin. It was getting a bit late by now, the sun was setting and it was also blissfully chilly after the heat of the day. From Tomatin I headed south over the Slochd and camped down by a fine Wades bridge on the old route of the Sustrans NCN 7
I've always fancied stopping here but never needed to previously as friends used to live in Aviemore.
Many years ago I was involved in a project to re-furb the bridge and do up the approach track along the old military road as part of the development of NCN7. The signs now show this section as for 'mountainbikes only' which undersells it. Pity Sustrans cant chuck a few quid at the track to sort it as its a far nicer route than the road.
After breakfast in Carbridge I followed another abandoned section of NCN7 over to Boat of Garten and then various trails through the woods to Aviemore. Called into Bothy Bikes to Chat to Dave for a bit and then headed south. There are lots of options here so I went for a lesser known one via the Minigaig pass. As I've done before I accessed it via Glen Feshie and a big climb on a stalking track up to 847m. There is then a steep descent and steeper climb up to an unnamed trig point at 912m.
A place of good views
The descent is nice - a wee tussocky, rocky path which was near dry. Passed a couple of walkers setting up camp early beside the burn at the halfway point and then impressed myself by riding the final steep descent nearly clean (One burn crossing defeated me plus a nav error which saw me go straight on at a hairpin...). Thereafter it a was an easy run out of Glen Bruar and down the riverside trails from Blair Atholl to Pitlochry. As luck would have it a train was due in shortly after I arrived so I jumped on to avoid a long road ride the next day.
and I'm looking over to the platform and the waiting room as a bivy spot.
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