After looking at the weather forecast the night before and having regard to two tough rides so far, I’d plumped for a shorter ride to one of the lochs. Then, for some unknown reason, I checked the Glenmorangie distillery opening times and found they were shut at the weekend. So today turned into the Glenmorangie ride. I got all my gear together after breakfast, unloaded the bike from the car, and set off. One hundred yards down the road I turned round, and went back to the B&B to pick up my water bottles, which I’d left in my room! My B&B in Pitlochry had been up the hill from the town, but this time my B&B was at low level, and I soon had to climb steeply to get to the road I needed to take. As I crawled up the hill to the junction, a kindly school crossing lady held up the traffic for me so I could turn right without stopping. The road out of Dingwall to Evanton climbed for a while, with the smell of pine in the air, and soon I was afforded great views of the Cromarty Firth to my right.
After a couple of miles I passed the Highland Farm Cafe, which I’d noticed while planning my trips, and which I’d intended to call at later. The road had levelled out by this stage, and by levelled out I mean it had downs as well as ups. Eventually I reached Evanton, passing the pretty Kiltearn Parish Church, and turned onto the B817. Just outside Evanton I noticed signs for National Cycle Network Route 1 on the right hand side of the road, and thought I may as well get on it and see what it had to offer. It started out paved, and then went through a lovely little wooded area where the tarmac was covered in tree detritus.
It went up and down, crossing the road a couple of times, and was actually quite fun to ride, if not quite as fast as being on the road. The road was fairly quiet, and any cars that did pass me did so on the other side of the road, leaving plenty of room as they passed. Eventually I came to a junction with the B9176 Struie Road and turned left. After a mile or so the road bore left and dived down to a stone bridge over the River Averon. After the bridge, the road began climbing again and soon after I came across a sign suggesting Dublin was on the left! A little further on, my attention was grabbed by a whole load of empty plastic bottles stuck in a fence on the left. This was Ardross Primary School, and the bottles had been carefully placed so as to spell out the name of the school.
The road had been gently climbing for a while, and I knew there was a big climb to come, so I debated whether to change my route and go for an earlier version I’d planned, where there was less climbing and a more direct route into Tain. I plumped for the latter, and kept wondering where my turn off was going to be for my original route until it dawned on me that I was actually on that part of the route, and there was no turning back! Ah well, onwards and upwards it was then. I crossed a bridge that had new tarmac on the road, and continued on, crossing another picturesque stone bridge and coming to some traffic lights for roadworks. Shortly after these, I turned off the road into Strathrory Forest, where I knew the highest point of the ride was going to be.
Initially this was great fun, riding on good forest tracks downhill and over bridges, and then the track started to climb. Forest tracks are great for going down, but not so much fun if you are climbing. There can be gravel which sucks at your tyres, or larger chunks of stone which kill your momentum, or lumpy bits of grass in the middle of the tracks which again kills your momentum. The climbing continued for a good while, with nothing but the sound of birdsong for company. On and on the track rose, at each turn I was hoping it would flatten out and each turn showed me some more climbing. Finally though, just when I least expected it, I reached the summit to be treated to a view over the Dornoch Firth that made every minute of climbing worthwhile. I stopped and sat on a tree stump while I had an oat bar, drinking in the view.
After a while, I sadly said goodbye to the glorious vista and set off, creating the top of the climb and starting downhill. There were some more bits of climbing to come, and eventually the track turned into a forest logging track, very sandy, which wasn’t easy to ride through. I came to a point where in my route planning I had chosen a different forest track to the “popular route”, and followed this. It turned out to be a challenging option, with varied surfaces and of course more climbs, and it got to the stage where it was mentally taxing as well as physically. At one point I was just wishing the forest would end and I could get to the distillery. There were occasional tantalising glimpses of Dornoch Firth suggesting the end was in sight, and sure enough after a couple of bends I came to a gate across the track and left the woods. Despite having opted to miss the high section of the route earlier, I was actually glad that I had done it, it was a great experience. Shortly after leaving the forest I came to the A9, where I turned left and in a very short while crossed the road to get to Glenmorangie Distillery.
I climbed off the bike rather stiffly, and entered the shop. I selected a bottle to purchase, and asked if there was somewhere I could get a dram as I wanted to drink a toast to my late father-in-law, whose favourite dram happened to be Glenmorangie. The lady behind the counter was brilliant, and took me to the tasting area where she poured a taster of what I’d bought, and took a photo as I drank to his memory. It was an emotional moment, and a fitting tribute to a great man.
Leaving the distillery, I headed back along the A9 for a short distance before turning off to ride throughTain, after which the road dropped down into a flat, agricultural landscape, running straight as an arrow for miles. At one point a car was coming towards me and I realised as it went past that it was mocked up to look like the car from Ghostbusters. Further on I came across the former site of RAF Tain, which is now the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s Tain Air Weapons Range. I took a photo and legged it before any police came round asking what I was doing taking photos of a military installation! Just after this I turned right and crossed over at the next junction to eventually come to Hilton, on the coast of the Moray Firth. Here there were a couple of sculptures by the sea, one of some giant salmon and, a few yards into the sea, the “Mermaid of the North”. Passing through Hilton, Balintore and Shandwick, I was heading back to the main road when my attention was caught by what looked like a glass box in a field. Sure enough, as I got closer I saw it was an ancient Pictish stone enclosed in glass for its protection, similar to Sueno’s Stone that I had come across in Forres on my last Scottish trip. I stopped for a nosey, and had another energy bar, and continued on after taking a couple of photos.
At Chapelhill I stopped to take a photo of Nigg Old Church, and then turned left at the intriguingly named Arabella towards Kildary, along more straight, flat, almost featureless roads, although at one point I did come across a family of cattle in a field, seven of them were calves. At Kildary I briefly joined the A9, managing to cross over without having to stop, then heading under the A9 and the railway to pass a field full of sheep with many young lambs playing. I continued on past the very enchanting Kilmuir Easter Church, through Barbaraville after which the road ran alongside the Moray Firth, with oil rigs and ships. In Invergordon there were plenty of port operations on view, and from here the road began to get very busy, so much so that when I saw a shared cycle path running alongside I decided to take it. I made good progress on this, and soon came to Dalmore. Here, the cycle path crossed the busy road to run into Alness alongside Alness Academy and through to Alness High Street. Here, as I came to a zebra crossing at the end of the path, a lorry stopped as I approached to allow me to progress. There were plenty of signs on the roads stating “Drivers must stop at crossings”, and I must admit the majority of drivers I encountered were courteous and respectful towards me. I picked up the cycle path again shortly after this, and rode on to the junction with the Struie Road, where I picked up my outward route towards Evanton. I chose to go onto the tarmaced NCN 1 again, until it ran out just before Evanton. From here the road rose again, and I could feel the day’s activities in my legs. At one point, I heard and then saw two large flights of geese heading north in formation. I stopped at the Highland Park Cafe hoping for a coffee, although their winter hours showed they closed at 4pm and it was 3:52! Fortunately the coffee machine was still working, and they served me and let me buy a cake.
From here it was only a couple of miles back to Dingwall, and the last mile into town was all steeply downhill, leaving me with an easy coast back to the B&B. It had been another fantastic day, with much outstanding scenery, some fairly dull roads too it has to be said, but overall a fabulous day on the bike. And it didn’t rain!
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