In the Cairngorms - 31 August 2008
We were sad to leave our wonderful B&B for the night. Burnside House in Duffus 01343 835165, www.burnsidehouse.net, came at the top of our list.
Our hostess, Anne Begg, spent quite some time with us as we ate our fabulous breakfast. We also met her lovely English setter, Tara.
Sadly Ann and her husband will shortly put their B&B on the market after ten years in business there. Theirs is not a seasonal business because they’re on the list for nearby Gordonstoun School (where Prince Charles went in the 1950’s). As a result they’re busy all the year round.
We passed through Elgin on the way to the Cairngorms where we wanted to spend part of our day. With its equitable climate, fertile soil and strategic position, Moray has played an important part in the story of Scotland from earliest times. Its principal town, Elgin, was founded on a well-drained ridge with a natural defensive mound and protected on three sides by the river Lossie which was also a source of power and a means of communication. There was probably a castle here as early as the 11th century and the land hereabouts was a favourite hunting ground of the early monarchs. David I raised Elgin to the status of a royal borough and in 1224 the town received the additional accolade as being chosen as the seat of the Bishop of Moray.
It was pretty cold by the time we got to Aviemore in the Cairngorms, a town we thought was absolutely delightful and was really buzzing. The weather was closing in so we decided that horse riding at nearby Albie was something that we’d love to do before we went up Cairngorm. It was a lovely interlude in beautiful surroundings and Suzi loved it so much that she’s wondering how she can ride on a regular basis.
Riding over, it was time to drive to the bottom of Scotland’s first mountain funicular to take us almost to the top of Cairn Gorm, UK’s 6th highest mountain, in just eight minutes. At the bottom of the mountain, we passed this beautiful sight.
There was so much information to take in that we spent quite some time at the Visitor Centre.
The Park covers an area of some 3,800 square kms of which 39% is designated as being sites of special natural heritage importance. The park is a home to a quarter of the UK’s threatened species. The central mountain zone forms the largest area of arctic mountain landscape and ecology in the British Isles, hence the evidence of the last ice age can be seen in the high corries and the glens which cut through hills. Many of these glens form the natural routes for the hill tracks. The heather moorland which covers much of the lower slopes includes wide ecological diversity while much of the woodland around the foothills contains remnants of the original pine and birch forests.
The clouds had gathered so the view from the viewing platform was disappointing but this photo gives an impression of the surrounding countryside.
We really enjoyed our visit – in fact, Suzi jumped for joy!
By now the rain was pouring down but fortunately we had a long car journey ahead of us. We drove south round the Grampian mountains until we arrived in Crieff which we’d been told was really beautiful. We stopped a local woman, out walking her beautiful Labrador but she couldn’t think of anything very special that we could stop and look at so we drove on to Dunblane. This looked more promising but when we looked for a B&B we followed a route which soon became single track and we got thoroughly lost. We emerged at the other end of the road about an hour later – what a disaster! By this time we found that we were on the outskirts of Stirling, so we missed Dunblane altogether. Suddenly we were surrounded by B&B’s and chose one quickly and easily. They directed us out to dinner at the Birds & Bees.
The food was spectacularly presented and we even succumbed to dessert to celebrate our liberation from that awful single track road! Yum!
