The Cycle Path
Cycle Log
Day 13 - Thursday 1st July 2004
Tormaukin Inn to Pitlochry
Up at 5 for a quick getaway but yet another puncture to repair, and, in the windless period of the day, got eaten by a thousand Scottish midges. Skimmed lightly along the Glen of the eagles and turned off to Auchterarder for a hot bacon roll and coffee to warm my frozen fingers. Thence to Kinkell Bridge in Strath Earn; avoided Crieff to get quicker into the hills via the Sma' Glen and missed out Wester Fowlis. Also missed the opportunity to have the Famous Grouse Experience...too early in the day for me. Great landscape in the glen but everywhere notices warning of impending doom from wind turbines and ancillary pylons. This would be National Park quality in the south I feel sure and the road was so lightly trafficed it was enjoyable. Stopped at the well named 'Lonely Inn' and had another warming cup of coffee with the new owner...the talk was naturally about windfarms in such a beautiful place. I stopped to look at one of the posters and David Bellamy was speaking out against them at Perth Town Hall... that bloke must be on castors. Suddenly the cold mountain pass overlooked a sunlit valley and soon I was wearing out my brake blocks on the swift descent to Aberfeldy. I had high expectations of the place as a sign announced it as Scotland's First Fairtrade Town but as I ate my venison burger in the town square watching a man restore an ornate Victorian drinking fountain with a heron motif I couldn't make out why. Got some good Aberfeldy oatcakes and dawdled on to Ballinluig via a community owned ex-railway bridge at Logerait. It was in no nonsense chunky iron and restricted to local residents and Sustrans cyclists as easy access across the Tay...a remnant of the former Caledonian Railway. Collided with the roaring A9 and took the forest route to Pitlochry pausing at the Festival Theatre, Fish Ladder and the bouncy suspension bridge to the Victorian creation on the east bank of the Tummel. The original village is higher up the hill and called Moulin and has its own brewery-pub and Scotland's smallest distillery producing the Edranour single malt. Early to bed to prepare for the assault on the 1500' Pass of Drumochter.
