Diary - Day 14

Ideally I would have liked to be away from the campsite nice and early today, but we were both pretty tired from the day before so didn't have the energy to jump out of bed and onto a bike. We left a little after 9am and headed into town from our campsite in the historic town of Scone (seat of Kings and all that). After crossing the bridge into Perth we turned right and travelled along the cycle route through the park until we arrived in the industrial site where Inveralmond Brewery resides. We plodded around the estate until we arrived at the right place and wandered in to find head brewer Fergus Clark on his way out. My optimistic scheduling came into play as we were about an hour late, but we were shown around the brewery my another very helpful person who's name I have as usual forgotten. He is on the right in this photo though.


We tried a few different beers but none were fully finished and so we couldn't fully appreciate the taste. The 'Sunburst Pilsner' that we tasted was the one that sticks in my mind though, despite the fact that I prefer dark ales. Would be well worth trying that one under good conditions and the others we tried certainly made me want to try them again. (click Inveralmond to go to the page)

We trundled through the countryside after Perth along the cycle route that leads through Bankfoot and onto Pitlochry. The final part of this route, about 10 miles into Pitlochry, is a really pleasant section and we were able to get on at a decent pace until the last couple of miles popped in a couple of steep little hills. In Pitlochry we stopped in one of the many eating places for a fry-up. The place we chose was a hotel and the fry-up was all a little too 'organised' for our liking, 'big and messy' being our preferred type of meal. On the plus side the woman who served us gave us a fiver for the cause, which was nice. We found flapjacks in Pitlochry which was probably the first time in Scotland that our favourite source of fuel was available. (It was a Julian Graves, which I believe is an English outlet).

From Pitlochry we went through Blair Atholl and then onto the old A9, which runs alongside the new one and is now a cycle route. We climbed up to the Pass of Drumochter which is about 520m pretty easily and felt that things may be going our way. Alas, as soon as we were over the top the wind smashed us straight in the face and drove us back. Very annoyingly the descent was much harder than the ascent.

In fact the last 30 miles were probably the toughest section to cycle of the whole trip and it wasn't even very hilly. After yesterday's exertions we really didn't need this.



*picture taken on the old A9 of the river Garry

We tried to visit the Dalwhinnie whiskey distillery but by the time we arrived it had closed for the day. Nothing for it but to plough into a headwind for the next two and a half hours in order to reach Aviemore. We arrived at the hostel at about 8:30 very tired.

Only one thing for it then, get showered and hit the pub. It was Friday night so plenty of people were out, despite the weather seemingly deteriorating all the time, and we found a packed pub on the main street after popping into the supermarket for essentials (pasties, lucozade, flapjacks). The Cairngorm brewery was situated just half a mile from where we sat, but unfortunately the schedule had not allowed us the chance to visit despite receiving an email from the head brewer. In honour of the fact that he bothered to respond I purchased a pint of Cairngorm 'Stag', while Sam decided he wanted a Guinness. Not for the first time he decided he didn't like something before he had tried it, I don't know what was so offensive about the pint of Stag but he eventually tasted it and decided he was right and it was rubbish. This is nonsense as it was a perfectly good pint and I had another to prove the point.

This photo is Loch Garry I think:


As we sat outside under a gas lamp thing, staying warm despite the dropping temperatures, we were approached by a local gentleman who sat down next to us and proceeded to start a conversation. On learning that we were cycling around the entire country he became very impressed and decided to tell us three different jokes about swearing parrots. I am not sure how many pints you need to drink to find the logic in that, but it appeared that he had found the answer. He made a brief mention of his own Land's End to John O'Groats, decided our efforts were far superior and pulled out a wad of notes the size of his fist. "You get yourself a decent place to stay and some good meals inside you" he said and peeled off £100. 'Bloody hell' was about all I could think, but I managed to say "thanks" instead. There had been racing at Perth earlier and by the sound of it our new friend had found some winners.

This whirlwind encounter finished after about ten minutes with us considerably richer. We began talking to a man at the next table who was also staying at the hostel before this was interrupted by a pissed-up middle-aged woman plonking herself down next to Sam and mixing kind words, abuse, unintelligible nonsense and dribble in one big melting pot of verbal diarrhea in another 10 minute explosion of oddity. It was clear after a couple of pints that while full of fascinating people, this place was probably not ideal for us to be in with 85 miles miles into shite weather the next day.

We wandered back to the hostel and I told Sam that it was his turn to get up first after 13 straight days of my having to kickstart the days operations. It made sense as he wanted to do some washing. Unfortunately it was still a crap idea on my part.

Day 14 review

Mileage = 96
Breweries visited = 1
Pints drunk = 6 or so