Day 11 Braemar to Grantown-on-Spey

We overnighted in the Fife Arms which had apparently last been refurbished in the reign of the Old King.

We managed to annoy two coach loads of touring pensioners from Glasgow by accidentally pushing in the breakfast queue and set off relatively early in sunshine. Bizarre I know, but we could see the hills and everything.  We even went in short sleeves!

Off we pedalled for what was supposed to be a short day, so happy that we immediately cocked up on the navigation front. Now you have to believe that this is not easy when there are only three roads within 2 million acres of this part of Scotland, but we cycled blithely on for about two miles before we realised.

We retraced our tyre tracks to the correct route which consisted of a very small B-road to UP. It really was very up, so up in fact that when we got to the top the RAF tornados looked as though they were below us. We still haven’t walked uphill which is not bad for two old farts.

We passed through The Lecht Ski area which along with Glenshee  yesterday, reminded me not to ski in Scotland. We did however wonder, how much we could get for a snow cannon on E-bay as there were several just lying around doing nothing.

After The Lecht we had a lovely run down to Toumintal for coffee and cake then a quite hilly run to here.

I really do have to stop now and go somewhere else as somebody has started to play the Bagpipes, no honestly right outside the window. It proves to me that the only way to listen to bagpipes is through binoculars.
49 miles. 13.1 average