It was uphill from the hostel and into Inchnacardoch Forest, taking General Wade's road up some grassy hairpins then onto fireroads to lift us over the hill. We had the mega pylons for company again, they followed a great swathe of desolation cut through the forest. From the top of the ridge we dropped into Glen Moriston along the route of the military road. The fossilised tyre marks in the dirt suggested the top section could be quite sticky when wet, thankfully it didn't get very wet until the last km which was deep inside the trees and covered in moss.
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| Down to Glen Moriston |
Before we reached the road we passed over a few patches of bright green turf that was outgrowing everything else in the forest, on closer inspection these were covering little stone bridges that had recently been repaired.
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| Luminescent bridge |
We followed the A887 to Ceannacroc Bridge, crossed the bridge then attempted to follow a black dotted line around the hill to the line of the old military road. We labouriously climbed a wet track for a while then lost amost all the height when I spied a better track. This didn't last long and we ended up pushing through dead bracken, bogs and heather on deer tracks in our search for the old road.
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| Anybody seen an old military road? |
We eventually found the line of the road but it wasn't surfaced and had gone to ruin. Eventually it got a bit more rocky and occasionally bits were rideable but it was slow and wet going despite being relatively flat. At least the sun was out. A good landrover track meets the old road at the Allt nam Peathrain and after this a proper path started. We traversed a little then began to descend to Cluanie Loch. The path had a grand vista down the loch towards Kintail, its surface was a sort of white grit and there was the occasional rock slab to negotiate. For some reason it didn't roll fast and it felt like you had two soft tyres.
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| Cluanie Loch |
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| Muck Moab |
We emerged on the A87 and Fi demanded lunch so we sat in a ditch and had hummus for lunch, for some reason we didn't cross the road and find a nice spot overlooking the loch. We did a spot more road to Lundie, named after me of course. Fi fancied a rest so she continued on the road while us boys took a marbley track up to a transmitter then followed the remains of the military road down to Allt Coire an Clach, it didn't appear passable beyond the stream crossing so we dropped back to the main road and met Fi.
A km and a half before the Cluanie Inn we turned right on a grassy landrover track that took us up An Caorann Mor, a sign at the bottom signalled 17 miles until we would hit road again. The track is apparently the way that supplies are brought into Glen Affric hostel so we were expecting a good path. It was for a while but ended abruptly and we were left to push our bikes over bogs, reeds and damp grass up to the watershed. We were surrounded by some very impressive hills, which took the edge off the bog trotting drudgery. There isn't much of a drop into Glen Affric so we continued our trudging and occasional pedalling for a while before deciding it would be less soul destroying to take a direct line to Camban rather than push two sides of a triangle that would take us towards the hostel. The direct line was very rough but Camban bothy was a good landmark to steer to, and slowly got closer.
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| What we pushed across |
I was worried that we were in for another 5 miles of pushing through bogs until we hit the next estate track, my spirits were lifted when I eventually dragged my bike up to the Camban path, it was well surfaced and dry - at least as far as we could see to the bothy. We had a celebratory cake and popped in the bothy to sign the visitors book and check out Eric's entry. There were some other interesting recent entries from people doing the 420 mile Highland Trail event, we'd seen one in the morning, he was flying despite being 300 miles in.
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| Camban |
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| Driven to drink |
Paul had done this path before and had omitted to tell us about the treats in store. It could be the finest singletrack in the land, a white string in an impressive situation.
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| The fun begins |
The first part was slightly uphill but we had our old friend the tail wind to give us a helping hand, every now and again there was a steeper pitch or a rocky obstacle to divert our eyes from the scenery - waterfalls pouring out of the corries at the back of the Five Sisters.
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| Towards the Five Sisters |
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| Also nice |
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| Falls |
When the path started down proper it was very much eyes on the trail, it was a bit technical - rocky with the odd hairpin, drainage gulley and pitched section, almost all rideable for me and just about all rideable for Paul and Alex.
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| Down to Gleann Lichd |
Several km later we reached Glenlicht House and were back on landrover tracks for the last few miles down Gleann Lichd to Morvich. A bit of road took us to our hostel out the back of Kintail Lodge in Invershiel. The nearest shop was at the garage two and a half miles down the road in Inverinate so we dumped our kit and went for supplies and an ice cream. After five days of riding we had developed quite an appetite, we were definitely doing our bit to keep the Scottish cake industry afloat.
The hostel had some dodgy 70s decor but was clean and we got individual rooms. We were sharing it with some teachers who were walking, biking, sea kayaking and generally enjoying the sun. The pub was next door to help wash down our attempt at eating 1kg of spaghetti.
37 miles, 4000ft (+ 5 miles shopping!)
The hostel had some dodgy 70s decor but was clean and we got individual rooms. We were sharing it with some teachers who were walking, biking, sea kayaking and generally enjoying the sun. The pub was next door to help wash down our attempt at eating 1kg of spaghetti.
37 miles, 4000ft (+ 5 miles shopping!)
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