I love Braemar and it was nice to be back. After stuffing ourselves at the cafe we tried to get supplies at
the Co-op. Lunch supplies were limited but at least Judith got a bottle of wine for the second night. The Fife Arms has recently been renovated and it's a fine building. Slightly surprised and amused by the goings on outside of it on this Saturday morning.
Mercedes, Bentley's, Porche galore! The hotel front of house staff were very smartly dressed in tweed plus fours, waist coat etc and were constantly assisting customers to take their (leather) suitcases to a vehicle. Two young women were standing by one 4x4 with a half empty bottle of gin (I think it was around 11am) and a concierge was offering to make them a GnT on the roadside before they left. Their parents arrived and as they were leaving they reversed to turn around nearly crashing into a chauffeur driven Merc... if Shaw had not shouted "STOP" it could have been a disaster!
Alas we had to leave the show behind so headed West on the dead end road to Glen Derry. It was hot now and we took our time. At the road end they had opened an overspill carpark and hundred's of fake were enjoying the river.
As soon as we left the road behind and continued West on estate tracks to White Bridge we only saw a hand full of people again. At the river crossing were the Geldie Burn and Bynack Burn meet there's an old derelict building. It was interesting to see a big work party leaving. I found out later that it is in fact a bothy and they are currently renovating it and have already put in windows and doors - great news!
Heading South once again we rode a cool piece of single track along side the steep ravine of Allt Garbe Buidhe to the impressive Bedford Bridge. I've been here previously with Kev (coming the other way). With a slight down hill this way round it made the track 5 star! Some of if is quite technical with serious consequences if you mess up! We didn't go fast but both Shaw and I got in a great groove and rode a few crazy sections which really we shouldn't have! But we were in the zone!
After the bridge were I informed Judith that we couldn't have another cup of tea (well we had one an hour before!) you hit estate tracks again. We were all pretty tired and glad of this. Even being mostly flat or gently down hill it still took a while to get to Blair Atholl our next settlement.
Day 2 we had to do a bigger mileage and we didn't really have a plan of where we would end up or camp so I felt a little pressured. We were all frazzled and Judith bought all of the sausage rolls in the shop in Blair Atholl. I persuaded everyone to buy hot food at a fish and chip shop/pizzeria before we moved on and this was a good call as it picked up all of our moods I think, even if it was going dark as we left with no real plan and no bike lights!
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