Argyll - Essential travel

Before the COVID tier system came into place, I'd a reason to do some essential travel to support a friend at an important work event. I took the opportunity to get an earlier train there and grab some time outside, using the West Highland Way to walk from the station at Bridge of Orchy through to Kingshouse. It was a beautiful autumn day for it and the hill colours were at their fiery finest.

From Bridge of Orchy the route ascended to the pass of Mam Carraig which opened up the view to the sweeping lines of the peaks and ridges that culminate in Ben Starav. 

From this high point, the path dropped down to Inveroran. I loved the message board outside the hotel here where folk who had passed on the West Highland Way this year had scribbled their names. The route leaves Inveroran to climb up onto Rannoch Moor, heading north on the old parliamentary road.

Up on the moor, the colours were ablaze in the autumn sunshine with russets and golds that contrasted with blue skies and grey rock. I love striking out across the moor here. It feels wide open and empty. 

The only feature that the path crosses is Ba Bridge which takes it over the rocky gorge of the Ba River. Today birch trees that were clustered around the bridge added gold and purple to the pallet.

The sun was starting to sink now and the Black Mount peaks cast their shadows across the moor. I'd planned to be out late though, to finish the walk after dark. So I climbed higher onto the older military road, which was marked by a crumbling stone cairn. With big views, this was a great spot to watch the sun set. As it did so, shafts of light illuminated patches of hillside in turn and the lochans studded across the moor appeared alight, as they reflected the orange glow of the hills.

There was just enough light left in the day to bring me down to Kingshouse without a headtorch. Waiting there was my friend, a pot of tea and a nice surprise - we'd been upgraded for free from the bunkhouse to a swanky room.

Fact file
More photos HERE

Start: Bridge of Orchy

Finish: Kingshouse Hotel

Public transport: Citylink buses and West Highland line trains for Bridge of Orchy; Citylink buses for Kingshouse.

Route: Exit the station at Bridge of Orchy down the stairs and turn left at the bottom. This is now the West Highland Way and well signed through to Kingshouse. 

Dava Way - Delayed departure

The Dava Way is a walking and biking route that uses the line of the old Highland Railway between Grantown-on-Spey and Forres. It passes high over heather moors and open hills but it’s also bookended by beautiful, autumn woods. As it’s only 24 miles long, we thought there’d be no trouble in delaying our departure from Grantown on our bikes to let morning rain pass. We were so sure that we would easily make it to Forres before dark. But we were wrong!

The route started well enough out of Grantown, cycling through the woods to climb up onto the moor. But we were soon bogged down in mud, courtesy of the recent wet weather, and progress with loaded bikes was extremely slow. Luckily, there was plenty to divert our attention. 

A few miles into the route, the trail passed above Huntly’s Cave ravine, a dramatic cut in the landscape that was almost hidden by dense trees. Above the ravine is Carn-na-Croiche, also known as the Hanging Hill. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries cattle reiving was rife and Huntly’s Cave ravine was an excellent spot to ambush reivers as they returned to Lochaber and Badenoch with their booty. Those caught here were hung on the Hanging Hill gallows.

Leaving this gruesome tale behind, we cycled up onto the open moor and the highest point of the route. We saw nobody up here and it really felt quite remote. Our trail was crossed by another track which headed out over the hills following a route used in 1690 by a party of Government foot-soldiers. They were heading over to Cromdale to suppress a Jacobite army that had encamped there the previous evening. Despite having to ford the River Spey, they won the battle which held back the Jacobite uprising in the Highlands for another 25 years.

In some places, the track was firmer and we made some progress but in other places the chunky ballast, left over from when the line was in use, slowed us even more than the mud. But we loved being out in the hills on our bikes and were reminded how high we were as we cycled into Heatherbell Cutting. The cutting was the site of many line blockages due to snow and this led the railway company to build its first snowploughs. In 1963, a southbound train out of Forres was derailed here in deep snow. Engines sent to assist ended up being stuck for two weeks in the drifts. Nobody was hurt and the passengers eventually made it back to Forres.

Beyond Heatherbell Cutting, we skirted around the edges of a small hill called Knock of Braemory. At the foot of the hill, we pulled into the Halfway Hut. There was a clue in the name that we were way behind schedule! It was clear at this point that we wouldn’t make it to Forres before dark, especially with the early nights of late October. The Halfway Hut is a former linesman's hut and has been renovated for folk to use for a lunch stop or to get out of bad weather. It had plenty of charm with a solar panel powering fairy lights, so we lingered a while inside enjoying some snacks before getting back on the bikes.

As we descended, we passed into a pleasant landscape of woods and pastures, punctuated with the vibrant golds and russets of autumn colours in the trees and the bracken. Before too long, I found among the pines probably the only dry bit of ground for pitching the tents while Graham found a mains supplied tank at the edge of a field that provided water for drinking and cooking. So that was us sorted for a pleasant evening camping in the woods. Unseen birds twittered in the canopy above and gentle rain showered the tents at some point in the night. 

Next day, we cycled the final section of the Dava Way into Forres. It was stunning in places as the track passed through autumn birch woods, their leaves blowing on the breeze like golden confetti. At Forres we turned around but ours was not a return ticket for the Dava Way. Instead, we took a quiet hill road back to Speyside. 

Fact File

More photos on Flickr

Start/finish: Grantown-on-Spey

Public transport: Train to Aviemore then NCN7 to Boat of Garten then quiet back road to Grantown. Or train to Forres and start there.

Route: Dava Way starts behind the campsite in Grantown and signed from the road that passes the campsite. To return we took the B road then unclassified road to Knockando via Dallas. From Knockando used a bit of the Speyside Way back to Grantown but it was also very muddy so we ended up mostly using the B road on the north side of the Spey which was actually very pretty.