Day 5 – Kingussie to Aviemore
Andy was ill during the night. He blamed it on all the seawater he drank while at training. Anyway, he wasn’t in good shape, and his feet were also a problem with blisters. He blamed that on wearing socks that were too thick on the first day.
We got away about 9.30am. I calculated it was around 20 miles to go. A deer in the woods beside us distracted us for a moment as we left Kingussie.
The walk started on the road up to Ruthven Barracks. We took the obligatory photos.
We continued on the road on until we reached a turnoff for Insh nature reserve. We were then following signs for the Badenoch Way.
The trail was narrow through mixed forest virtually all the way to Loch Insh. We stopped at lochside at 12.30pm and ate lunch as usual with our feet in the water.
We headed on and managed to get ourselves off the EHW by continuing to follow the Badenoch Way. However, we soon got back on track.
Leaving Loch Insh behind us our next encounter was with the Feshie sculpture park. This time we did take a detour to look at the sights.
We soon reached Feshie Bridge and by now the sun was out. Charlie and Andy had a swim here and I cooked my feet. Dave took the weight off and waited for us.
We left around 2.45pm for the final push.
The route is all forestry; some standing, and some felled. At around bearing 870 055 we went straight on instead of taking the track to right; the failure to take a bearing probably caused by fatigue. It cost us dear as instead of walking in via Loch an Eilein we hit the road past it, and on to Rothiemurchus.
By now, Andy was struggling badly with his feet, and the rest of us were just knackered. We stopped shy of the turn to Loch an Eileen to wait for Dave and have a drink.
When we restarted, the rest had done for Andy who could walk only very slowly. It started to rain. I was up front, Charlie next then Dave. Only around 3 miles left.
Just shy of the Rothiemurchus visitor centre, Dave passed in a car! Charlie and I got to the junction and waited for Andy so we could walk the last mile as a group along the footpath. We made the Old Bridge Pub at 6 o’clock. Dave was waiting there and got stick aplenty for taking the lift. He was unfazed.
We enjoyed a couple of beers before walking on to the other end of town for our guest house. Shower and change then out for a pint before hitting the Italian at the other end of the village.
Walk mileage for the day: 21.27 miles.
The night ended at 1am and a hangover in the morning.
Total walk mileage: 88.72 miles.
Reflections
Need to do more in the first 2 days to cut the mileage in the last 3, and particularly day 4. Not sure how to achieve that with the geography.
Wouldn’t do it again.
Plus points
We met nobody else doing our walk; a big contrast to the very busy West Highland Way.
The wild walking between Laggan and Newtonmore.
The weather was great.
The midges were not too bad.
The swimming at Feshie Bridge was great.
Minus point
Taking the wrong route on day 5 and having over 5 miles of road walks.