3 days off work on holidays gave me an 11 day break and with G also off we packed bikes into her car as still no fixed van - recon engine supposedly on its way finally... Holding my breath...
And we headed 3 hours up the A9 to turn off at Dalwhinnie and parked at Laggan,
Putting the bikes together was a matter of refit the front wheels then fit the pre packed bags and we were soon rolling, the weather today was on our side - though we did not expect a heatwave with no wind and a temperature of 22C!
G had as always with Military precision researched and plotted a route that would take up in a big loop with hopefully 3 nights stop over at Mountain Bothies and a night camping, then all going to plan a night booked into campsite for a shower and sort out go kit (extra fresh clothes in car) then park up the car again for an out and back ride to somewhere we both have no visited before - more on that in a future post...
Back to today and we took gravel roads from Spey Dam
f
The gravel track took us across to Garve Bridge and then on up to the public road end at Melgarve bridge,
We had a look in the Melgarve Bothie there that we had read online is now devoid of bed frames and furniture as sadly being a few yards from a public road had become a regular weekend resort for drinking by large groups who left the place like a tip...
Now there is nothing wrong with having a drink at a Bothie , but these are maintained by members of the Mountain Bothie Association for people to use for shelter, sleeping and eating and in most cases an early night as we all know we nee a good sleep after a big day outdoors...
The Bothie is very clean inside we noted and moving on we took the landcover track to Shesgnan cottage where after chatting with Derek whose family was there on holiday - im guessing the cottage is a time share? we took hi advice and kept to the hillside above the trackless bog which G had crossed a weeks previously on her last bikepacking trip here and she knew it was shin to knee deep bog,
We were lucky also that it was so dry this now with little rain in recent weeks - evident on the way up the A9 looking at the rivers we crossed. This was one of the main reasons we Brough full 5" tyre Fatbikes for this trip, this and a few rocky tracks we would be riding which is also where Fatbikes excel...
Despite the dry condition this crossing was tough and in the stifling heat quite hard work, G opted to walk a lot of it, I cycled it where I could but we would stop often as sweating a lot - good thing drinking water was not in short supply from the burns coming down the hillside...
I guess it would take about 45 minutes ir so to walk across the bog to the rough track on the other side and all the way we were surrounded by Dragon Flies, I have never ever seen so many of them, beautiful to see and listen to their winging drumming as the flew all around us...
We were soon onto a real rough track that again the Fatbikes made light work of and passing Spey Loch G said that's me now cycled the whole length of the River Spey from our previous Bikepacking trips...
The view was absolutely stunning...
W soon reached Luib Chonnal Bothy and 2 lads from the west were upstairs with the stove on cooking dinner so once unpacked and dinner cooked in the downstairs room we took I was drawn upstairs by recognising the music being played quietly on a phone - Boards Of Canada! we went and sat for a few hours chatting and swapping stories of places visited and soon enough the light was fading and a full moon rose above the hills... you could not have made this day end any better as we drifted off to sleep...
Next morning were were up early and stoves lit for coffee then porridge...
Dishwashing duties!...
Here is film of day 1, I have not seen another film on Youtube of someone cycling across this bog on the route, well it can be done about 95% with the right bike...
Music is various Boards Of Canada - `Aquarius` `Satellite Anthem`. `Icarus` `Skyliner`
No comments:
Post a Comment