We spied Ruthven Barracks from the viewing point along the road. There are some great information boards here to provide a potted history and some interesting facts. Won't spoil it for you here though.
We arrived at around 8 o'clock and looked for a good cafe, surely every town has a cafe to get a hearty breakfast? There were cafes, but none opened until gone 9. Could we wait an hour or so?, or should we carry on? We purchased breakfast from a good selection of items at Kingussie Coop. We found picnic benches, toilets ( at a price ), and an opportunity to fill water bottles at Kingussie tourist information. The sun was bright and so this probably was the best option anyway. The younger ones went for a swing in the nearby play park, to burn off some spare energy, uhh?
Kingussie is certainly a very attractive town, and I would like to return another day for a proper look round when shops are open.
We headed off after breakfast to pass by Loch Gynack, and around the foothills of Creag Bheag. Here we made a navigational error, and finished climbing for a few hundred metres up Creah Bheag before realising we had missed a right turn. Although fairly early in the day we came across some keen climbers practising on the crags hereabouts. For future reference I think this area would have made a better wild camp, there is a grassy flat section here too. Provided rock falls are not common this could be one to look at in future. Views are spectacular too. Realising the error we used the iphone app called gridpoint to locate us on the Harvey map. This took just a couple of minutes, but at least we all had confidence to walk back on ourselves, which is always hard to do. Interestingly this app does not need a phone signal to work. It gives a grid ref from a standing start in just a couple of minutes, which to be fair is all I would ask for. I dont own a GPS and feel more than happy to just use this if I need a grid fix.
Loch Gynach offers super views and even has its own little islands.
The Layers of clothing came off as the sun grew hot, very hot! ( nb. It turned into a mini heatwave lasting a few days, in fact for the rest of the trip. Scotland for those few days became scorching hot, the warmest part of the UK in fact - lucky us :) )
Beyond here we followed a little stream down into Newtonmore and a first real opportunity for a stores restock at the local supermarket. We would not see another proper shop for several days, so stocking here is essential. Instead of using this great piece of advice I just set off from Aviemore with a weeks shopping shared between us, well at least that was a weeks shopping minus 2 days now. Newtonmore is a super little town, and spoilt for choice now, for lunch, we settled on the garden area at the rear of a cafe. To my great shame I cannot remember the name of the cafe and have lost the receipt. It was dog friendly and had a little garden at the rear. If anyone can advise me of the name I will edit. Life at this point was just about perfect!
We now headed from civilisation into the remotest part of the EHW. Glen Banchor. This is a very wild and remote section, you will enjoy this section I promise. We passed through a deserted little hamlet along the way (Turn at the fence and gate here don't continue up the valley). We headed up to the Bothy ( NH 648 984 ) which sits at the confluence of several valleys. 3 burns have to be crossed to make the bothy. Due to our group size, and with a desire to keep boots dry, we took a great deal of time crossing the burns. I managed to get a wet foot crossing the first burn, oh well! . I decided to help others keep dry feet by acting as a leaning post across wider stepping stones etc. I also found I could offer piggy backs across shallower bits. Come on kids! All very exciting. My good friend Nathan offered me some newspaper to dry out the boots, which I stuffed into the toes overnight. Great tip! Thanks man :)
We arrived at camp around 6.30, an hour to sunset. Meals were quickly prepared. Soya Curry and fried onion cous cous with lashings of hot tea and meusli bars and nuts and starving! Good quality water was filtered from the burn, and was good enough to drink then and there.
This is pretty much the ideal as far as wild camping goes in my book. flat grassy dry ground. Bothy to run to if the weather turns. Set the tent door to an easterly direction and you may be greeted in the morning to a fine sunrise with mountain views :).
Click here for day 4 - Loch Doire Nan
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