Last Saturday, sporting exhaustion-hangovers from running a bop (for Skyros!) the night before, Lachy and I headed into the Highlands for a spot of hiking. It was the first time I'd been to the Highlands proper, not including Pitlochry (since I was a child at least, and all I remember is my mum saying 'This is the Highlands!' and me saying 'Why?') and we were headed to the village of Tomintoul. I'd heard of the village because of the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Development Trust, an initiative which is trying to regenerate the area and attract more tourists. Since there was no specific Highland destination I wanted to visit, why not select a rural village and play it by ear?
We took three trains from Leuchars to Dundee to Perth to Aviemore and a taxi from there. Our hostel's website had said the taxi would cost £24 but it unfortunately cost £50, rather more than I could really afford. Then again I could have just misread it since the next time I checked the website the price had changed - either way, it was much cheaper on Monday morning when we left. We arrived at the Smugglers Hostel, a converted village school building, where we were welcomed and shown around by Simon, who helped us plan our hike for the next day and lent us a map and a guidebook. The hostel gets its name from the whisky smuggling that was once prevalent in the area, and our hike the next day actually crossed one of the old smugglers' trails.
We took a quick walk around the village just before dark, then made ourselves some dinner in the spacious, clean kitchen, chatting with some fellow hikers who were making their way through the Highlands. We got a very early night. We were very tired.
In the morning we partook of the hostel's breakfast buffet, a huge, tempting spread of cereals, eggs, bread and spreads. Scrambled eggs on toast with a glass or two of orange juice - a damn good hiker's breakfast. Cereal just never fills you up for the morning. We left the hostel with our maps and packed lunches and promptly set off in the wrong direction, then found our way to the correct end of the village and set off along the wrong path again. My orienteering skills have never been great and Lachy was too polite to question me, so it was a farmer and a herd of cows that finally set us walking on the right path. But we did get to see some deer up close on our brief detour.
We walked the Speyside Way through some beautiful valleys and over a couple of hills, through an amazing forest. Within an hour we were far from any roads; the silence was beautiful. We had been planning to walk a circular route to Glenlivet but by the time we reached the place where the guidebook's walk began there was no way we were going to get the whole thing done before we lost daylight, so instead we walked for a couple of hours until we reached the village of Tomnavoulin and then walked back. We passed a total of three people (one group) the entire day.
When we were back in the village, we wandered around the local shops, and I bought some fudge and tablet for my brother while Lachy tried a few drams of whisky in the Whisky Castle and bought a bottle of something. For dinner we went to the Glen Avon Hotel where Lachy had a local venison burger, then to the Richmond Hotel where I had a veggie burger since the Glen Avon was out. We had a couple of bottles of Cairngorm beer, White Lady being our mutual favourite. Then an episode of Peaky Blinders and another early night following a very hard day's walk.
Tomintoul is a lovely village. There are plenty more walks I'd like to have a go at in the area, and the Smugglers Hostel made us feel so welcome, I hope to return many times in the future!
We took three trains from Leuchars to Dundee to Perth to Aviemore and a taxi from there. Our hostel's website had said the taxi would cost £24 but it unfortunately cost £50, rather more than I could really afford. Then again I could have just misread it since the next time I checked the website the price had changed - either way, it was much cheaper on Monday morning when we left. We arrived at the Smugglers Hostel, a converted village school building, where we were welcomed and shown around by Simon, who helped us plan our hike for the next day and lent us a map and a guidebook. The hostel gets its name from the whisky smuggling that was once prevalent in the area, and our hike the next day actually crossed one of the old smugglers' trails.
We took a quick walk around the village just before dark, then made ourselves some dinner in the spacious, clean kitchen, chatting with some fellow hikers who were making their way through the Highlands. We got a very early night. We were very tired.
In the morning we partook of the hostel's breakfast buffet, a huge, tempting spread of cereals, eggs, bread and spreads. Scrambled eggs on toast with a glass or two of orange juice - a damn good hiker's breakfast. Cereal just never fills you up for the morning. We left the hostel with our maps and packed lunches and promptly set off in the wrong direction, then found our way to the correct end of the village and set off along the wrong path again. My orienteering skills have never been great and Lachy was too polite to question me, so it was a farmer and a herd of cows that finally set us walking on the right path. But we did get to see some deer up close on our brief detour.
We walked the Speyside Way through some beautiful valleys and over a couple of hills, through an amazing forest. Within an hour we were far from any roads; the silence was beautiful. We had been planning to walk a circular route to Glenlivet but by the time we reached the place where the guidebook's walk began there was no way we were going to get the whole thing done before we lost daylight, so instead we walked for a couple of hours until we reached the village of Tomnavoulin and then walked back. We passed a total of three people (one group) the entire day.
When we were back in the village, we wandered around the local shops, and I bought some fudge and tablet for my brother while Lachy tried a few drams of whisky in the Whisky Castle and bought a bottle of something. For dinner we went to the Glen Avon Hotel where Lachy had a local venison burger, then to the Richmond Hotel where I had a veggie burger since the Glen Avon was out. We had a couple of bottles of Cairngorm beer, White Lady being our mutual favourite. Then an episode of Peaky Blinders and another early night following a very hard day's walk.
Tomintoul is a lovely village. There are plenty more walks I'd like to have a go at in the area, and the Smugglers Hostel made us feel so welcome, I hope to return many times in the future!
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