Today's trip started in Fiddich Car Park in Craigellachie, where I'd started my Speyside Distillery tour from last September. Driving from Grantown On Spey, I passed Tormore distillery, which I'd 'missed' last year due to me looking in the wrong place. In fact, I'd been looking for the site of the 'former' Tormore distillery, when the one I passed was very much in use and pretty large. I blame Google maps for misinformation! I drove past a few more sites that I'd cycled on in September, and eventually reached the car park. I took the bike out of the car, set off, and within a few hundred yards started climbing. I'd known there was a fair amount if climbing early in the trip I'd planned, but wasn't quite prepared for it to come this early.
It wasn't onerous though, and I plodded on up the hill, reaching a Forestry Commission turn off for Ben Aigan. This turned out to be a steep climb on a wide, reasonably smooth forest track, which just kept going and going. A couple of times I reached a false summit, where it looked as thought the track was topping out, but on getting closer it continued to rise. Thinking the term Speyside was a bit of a misnomer, I continued to climb, eventually reaching a point where the trees gave way and afforded a great view of the Spey stretching out into the distance, far away and a lot lower down than I was. Eventually the track topped out and starting to descend, so I looked forward to a decent stretch of downhill to get back to the river. No such luck! My computer (and the Speyside Way) sent me off down a steep grassy track which unfortunately soon became boggy with standing water, and worse - blocked by fallen trees.
I climbed over a couple, ducked under a third, and squelched along to a point where the grass track eventually rejoined a forest track, turning back on itself to continue downhill. This turned into a rough farm track which, though pretty with gorse in bloom alongside, became a tough ride, eventually spitting out down some steps to join the road at Boat of Brig. The route then ducked under the railway line to Elgin and started climbing steeply again. This proved too much for me following the exertions of the forest previously, and I walked to the top of the climb, not too far. After remounting the road then undulated gently north, before hitting a steep downhill Z-bend followed by steep uphill (on foot again!), just before another Forestry Commission place at Earth Pillars. It continued to undulate before dropping down into Fochabers alongside Ordiquish Forest. At Fochabers I turned left and picked up the Speyside Waya again, which turned out to be singletrack through some woods, with tree roots plentiful. It picked up the River Spey at last, with the surface varying between singletrack and rough gravel. I saw a large heron flying over the river, and tried to get a closer picture of it, although each time I tried to sneak up to it, it must have heard me and flew off again.
By Garmouth the Speyside Way meets NCN 1, which goes over the Garmouth (or Spey) Viaduct. I detoured off over the viaduct, took a few photos and returned, to continue on the Speyside Way up towards Spey Bay, where I stopped at the WDC Scottish Dolphin Centre to chat to a couple who were touring with e-mountain bikes. It turned out their daughter lived near my home, and we compared collarbone injury details. I headed off eastwards on the Coastal Trail and headed inland before coming to Portgordon, where I took NCN 1 and rode on the old railway for a while before being spat back onto the road by Buckpool Golf Club. I followed NCN 1 through Buckie, past the football club, and back onto the old railway to Findochty.
The track became a coastal path then, past Findochty harbour and heading towards Portknockie, also with a small harbour. Here, the track picked up the old railway line again, and continued on to Cullen over a number of viaducts. I left the track and dropped down into Cullen, passing the harbour and pausing at Cullen beach for an energy bar, and to consider how to get back to Craigellachie. I didn't fancy retracing my route from Fochabers up and over to Boat of Brig and then back onto the boggy grass track in Ben Aigan forest, so looked at the options. I decided on heading towards Fochabers on the A98, taking the High Street through town and picking up the A98 again for a short while before turning off towards Rothes and then on to Craigellachie. The A98 was busy in patches, but the motorists were pretty considerate and it never became too daunting a journey.
Although not as scenic as the coastal route, there were a couple of interesting highlights, notably a place called Hill of Maud (Maud being where my mum is from) which looked a pretty damn big hill, and Bells Inchgower distillery. I eventually reached Fochabers and came off the A98 to go through the town, then picked it up after the River Spey before turning left after a few hundred yards onto the B9015. This turned out to be a pretty good, wide road, better than some of the A roads I'd been on, with not much traffic. Best of all, there were few climbs on it, and as I headed south I looked over to my left at the imposing Ben Aigan, and thanked my stars I wasn't heaving my old frame over it. Eventually I came to Rothes and passed the Speyburn distillery before coming across the Glen Grant distillery at a roundabout where I picked up the A941 Perth road. After a few miles I spotted a sign for the Speyside Cooperage Visitor Centre in four miles, and knew then that I was nearly back at the car park.
Just before the road turns left into Craigellachie, I turned right down a wide path to the old bridge at Craigellachie, designed and built by Thomas Telford in 1814 (although the iron bridge framework itself was actually constructed in Ruabon in Denbighshire. After riding over it, and taking a few photos, I rode under the new road bridge into Craigellachie and back to the car park. The Speyside Way through Ben Aigan had left a bad memory on me, but considering we've just had a wet and very windy winter it's no real surprise that the surface has suffered in places. I'm glad I did the ride from Craigellachie up to Spey Bay, and it would be good to ride it again when it is drier. That said, the new route back I worked out turned up trumps, with some great scenery and photo opportunities, and I'm glad I took that option too. Just goes to show, sometimes you don't get the ride you were expecting, but good planning skills are essential to cope with those circumstances.
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