Walking 1000 miles from Lands end to John O'Groats in aid of The Air Ambulance (starts april 7th 2024)

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Aberfeldy to Blair Athol 2/6

From our amazing wild(ish) campsite we descended into Aberfeldy for provisions and a quick look about, glad we did as this town is the place where clan chiefs loyal to the English/British  crown gathered troops to form the Highland watch now known as the Black Watch! To keep clans loyal to the Scottish crown in check.
The B road (again!) To Strathtay meanders along the Tay valley sadly on the opposite bank of the river to the Dewars distillery :( , with high hills either side the view is never dull, and upon reaching Strathtay a quick ice cream powers us up and over the hill to Pitlochry in the next valley over a pub lunch and we head west towards Killiekrankie (oh jimmy where are you now? Tee hee!) Along the lovely Loch Faskally through well tended woodland paths with sunlight now making the leaves glow! A lovely sight.
The path does run out at killiekrankie and we have a couple more hours on the road to Blair Athol a scenic village at the foot of Glenn Tilt where we will head into the wonders of the Cairngorms! If you don't here from us for a few days don't worry, we're heading into the wilds!  Woooohooooo!

Perth to Aberfeldy 1/6

Before I start to go on about today I'm just gonna break a mould I  know that my pet hate seems to be cities but things change ok?
Having had a rest day at Perth with all the usual camp chores finished ie repairs and washing we caught a bus into town on a sunny bankholiday Monday to find ourselves enjoying a quiet but still busy centre, no graffiti , tidy streets and a really pleasing vibe to the place! Plenty of parks and an old but well designed layout to the road system with grand buildings on all sides, you can really tell this used to be a capital city and that its still loved!
The campsite we stayed on had an equally nice vibe the place was spotless the two wardens couldn't do enough for you and it seemed that by the time we left everyone knew us by name with beers being given to us and our neighbours who left while we were in town left us a nice bucket barbie to cook on (sadly left this on site!) Oh the site is called "Noahs Ark" no idea why tho!.
Today!
After yesterdays sunshine todays drizzle is a shame but it is better walking weather.
So a stretch of footpath out of the site led us to a hop over the A85 into Almond Bank then into the pretty village of Pitcairngreen with its huge village green, from here a long long stretch of road walking through farmland past the usual animals and peacock with their haunting cries, to reach a turn onto single track road that runs parallel with Shochie Burn (great name!) This turns into a rutted track up Glen Shee for our first real taste of rough mountains ,tho the Scott's call them hills!, down and back onto roads towards Aberfeldy we pass our planned nights stop at 2pm so carrying on road walking we join one of General wades military roads by a land mark known as white cairn (of which there's neither s cairn or anything white!) The old road (dirt track) soon entered woodland where it degenerated into gooey squelchy bog....not easy or pleasant trust me! After two hours of this we leave the road(!?) Over a 12 foot high deer proof stile and hit tarmac walking past Loch na Craige a sign post pointed to a view point where we set up camp, with the sun setting we had a most spectacular view of the Cairngorms and nearer ranges, (names to follow and pic)