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Published: August 2nd 2021
Dear All
Greetings from Carrbridge, a small village in the northern parts of the Caingorms National Park, quiet, with a population of just over 700 people – 708 to be exact. Gosh, this is remote. Having just arrived from the touristy town of Ballater, a seeming metropolis in comparison, it has taken a bit of time to wind down a gear and adjust to village life – a place where everyone seems to know everyone, and as a visitor you really stand out. Perhaps this is what I need for a short while, just to take the pace down a gear or two, but if I’m honest I’m glad I’m just staying here three nights.
I was actually planning to stay in tourist central, nearby Aviemore, during this part of my trip. But booking my accommodation two months ago, the place was practically fully booked! I understand many British people are “staycationing” this summer, and perhaps Aviemore is just one of those popular places. The only place I found suitable and within my price range was a private room in Aviemore’s Youth Hostel, but I just couldn’t bring myself to booking into a Youth Hostel again after all these
Scottish Wilderness
Ballater to Carrbridgeyears. So I found a nice little BnB in the nearby village of Carrbridge, which looked like it had good transport links to the places I wanted to visit nearby, including Aviemore, and its supermarket. It turns out that the local bus service here doesn’t run on a Sunday, though when I checked a couple of months ago I thought it did – my mistake I think. Monday is also “Summer Bank Holiday” here in Scotland, which I didn’t realise, and thus there is also no bus service here on Monday! But fortunately I have cobbled together my transport plans for my time here, involving taxis and trains. Carrbridge is in fact on the mainline route between Edinburgh/Glasgow and nearby Inverness, and trains do stop here at the train station every once in a while – just not really on a Sunday, when there’s only one service in the morning to Aviemore, and nothing back again! So on Sunday I arranged with a local taxi driver to take me to a couple of nearby places, and Monday I planned my travels by train, which do not seem to be affected by the bank holiday. Well, if it was off-the-beaten track
I was looking for, I have certainly found it!
Getting here was also quite something, but very well worth it! I had originally planned to take a bus from Ballater back to Aberdeen, then a train to Inverness, and then a train to here, Carrbridge. Having discussed with a local taxi driver, it turned out to be only £20 more expensive, and infinitely quicker and easier, to book a taxi straight from Ballater to Carrbridge, a distance of only 47 miles, compared to 170 miles the roundabout route would have been. There used to be a local bus service which did this cross-Highland route twice a day, but the taxi driver told me it was not profitable and stopped running a few years ago. I was glad to have been able to arrange this journey. It was really spectacular, across the Lecht mountain pass, travelling through high Scottish moorlands and wildernesses, a stunningly sited 16
th century fortress house called Corgarrf Castle, a lovely little village called Tomintoul, and even a ski resort, the Lecht Ski Centre, though unfortunately I didn’t manage to take a photo of this. I enjoyed the journey very much, and the taxi driver pointed out
many places of interest to me, stopping to let me take photos whenever I liked – how lovely!
We arrived in Carrbridge just over three hours before check-in time, and the owners were out for the day, so I took the time to explore the village of Carrbridge and surroundings, after following the owners’ advice to leave my big backpack in a decking area at the back until they returned. The main point of interest in the middle of town is the Old Pack Horse Bridge, straddling the River Dulnain. Originally built in 1717, it is the oldest stone bridge in the Highlands. However, it was severely damaged during a great flood in 1829 they call the “Muckle Spate”, literally meaning “Great Flood” in the local dialect. It is still very beautiful to look at and admire though. Around there, I got talking to a gentleman in a kilt, who turned out to be a tour guide for Scottish tour company Rabbie’s, adverts for which I’ve seen a number of times since being here. He was a friendly fellow, and it was good to catch up with him while his tourist group were exploring the village. I also stopped
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Ballater to Carrbridge into the local art shop, the Carrbridge Studio, where I bought lovely little handcrafted figures of a puffin, a highland cow, and the Loch Ness Monster. I couldn’t believe it though, that as soon as I left the shop, I dropped the bag they were all in, and broke the Loch Ness Monster!! I felt too foolish to return, but I’m sure a bit of super-glue will do the trick when I’m back in London.
Further explorations around Carrbridge included a quick look-see at the nearby Landmark Forest Adventure Park, a big and famous theme park in the region, and apparently very busy at the time with the sounds of excitement and shrieks from its mini-rollercoaster and other attractions. I also stopped off at a local lake, Lochanhully, which actually turned out to be more of a holiday lake resort, the Macdonald Lochanhully Resort, but still beautiful nonetheless. Whilst walking around, I learned that Carrbridge is also famous for holding the annual “World Porridge Making Championship”, interesting, and the “Carve Carrbridge Scottish Open Chainsaw Carving Competition”, evidenced by numerous wood carvings located in public and private locations all over the village.
By now, it was nearing my BnB’s
Corgarff Castle
Ballater to Carrbridge check-in time, so I stopped off at the local village store, a Spar shop, to buy a few items to see me through until I can get to a proper supermarket, hopefully tomorrow via my taxi plans. My BnB was advertised as having a refrigerator in the room, but it turns out this isn’t the case – the owners have lent me a cool box though, so I can keep a few things in there. A kettle in the room also ensures I’ll be able to make use of my Pot Noodles brought from Aberdeen again, which saw me through my evening meals in Ballater, and will continue to see me through here in Carrbridge. Whilst I am very much enjoying my time in the Highlands, I am looking forward now to returning to a bit of civilisation again, hopefully on Tuesday when I head to a fairly sizeable settlement on the northern coast of Scotland, called Thurso.
After stocking up at Spar, I followed a lovely riverside walk back to my accommodation, past a field with two highland cows in, my first spotted on this journey so far! The BnB owners were now back, so I was able
to check in, and take it easy for the rest of the day, in my lovely little room here.
On the Sunday, I remembered my old personal adage that a Sunday is not always a traveller’s best friend. As mentioned, there were no bus services in Carrbridge at all that day, and the only train to leave the station only left the station, nothing returned. I asked around in the village the day before, and found the number of the village taxi driver, a gentleman called Bill, and arranged with him two trips, to combine with an actual bus journey, to get to see the places I was planning on seeing today anyway. So all good there. I am also learning that Scottish taxi drivers tend to talk quite a bit, in fact, for the whole journey, and you end up learning about their life stories and political beliefs. This is quite interesting as a way of getting to delve deeper into a place and its people, although I do also enjoy a quiet journey admiring the scenery.
So at 9.30 this morning, Bill picked me up to drop me off at my first port-of-call for the day,
the lovely RSPB Loch Garten Nature Centre. This place is famous nationally throughout the UK, for having brought the once-extinct (in this country) bird of prey, the osprey, back into existence in the whole country. The osprey became extinct in the UK in the 19
th century, but a breeding pair came to this spot on Loch Garten in 1954 from Scandinavia. This generated great local interest, and since then, osprey numbers throughout the UK have increased to 250 breeding pairs, found now in England, Scotland and Wales. This successful recolonisation of the birds has made the RSPB Loch Garten Nature Centre well-known, attracting over two million visitors since 1959. The famous osprey nest within the centre, which has its own live wildlife-cam, has apparently been nested almost every year since 1959, but unfortunately, and typically, not this year. Not to worry, it was quite special still to be in this important place of wildlife protection and conservation. I did manage to see a woodpecker however, and some quite amazing Devil’s Tooth Fungus – a mushroom which oozes thick red liquid – rather unusual. My visit also took in the beautiful Loch Garten itself, before a walk through the Abernethy Forest
National Nature Reserve, with its ancient Scots pine trees, took me to a nearby road where a Sunday-operating bus was actually running along. There was no bus stop, but Bill the taxi driver assured me the bus driver would stop when I hailed. Not long after, I did, and the bus stopped. Aside from an elderly lady who got off a few stops later, I had the whole bus to myself, rather like a very large taxi anyway, to my next destination, the delightful village of Grantown-on-Spey.
Grantown-on-Spey was founded in 1765 as a planned settlement, by the local Scottish clan chief and landowner Sir James Grant. My first stop in town was to visit the Grantown Museum, which essentially tells the man’s life story and his visions for a prosperous industrial town which he created on his land. The village developed into a tourism destination after Queen Victoria’s visit in 1860, apparently a visit of the Queen did wonders to boost a place’s reputation as a tourist destination, as it often became fashionable to visit wherever the Queen visited. Today, the village has an elegant charm, laid out in a grid-like pattern, with a central tree-lined High Street
Tomintoul Village
Ballater to Carrbridge running through a large central series of grassy squares. It turned out that the day of my visit also coincided with the local Cairngorms Farmers Market, so after a visit to the Museum, it was lovely to browse through the various stalls selling local produce and gifts. I then headed towards a nearby Old Military Road, learning that there seem to be quite a few of these throughout Scotland, and subsequently learning that these were constructed by the Hanoverian English military following the 1715 Jacobite rebellion to bring order to the country, similar to the Roman building of roads during the Roman Empire days. The roads linked various forts throughout the country, which housed English garrisons, such as at Braemar Castle and Corgarff Castle, encountered earlier on my trip. This is very interesting for me, learning about the history of a region as I travel and observe it, rather than reading up about it before I go. This Old Military Road just outside Grantown-on-Spey links the town with Tomintoul, Corgarff, Braemar and beyond, although I took it only as far as the River Spey, around a mile to the south. This was a great stop for a picnic late-lunch, before
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Ballater to Carrbridge I headed back into town to buy a few things from the Co-Op supermarket, whilst I awaited Bill the taxi driver who I’d arranged to meet there at 3.30pm to take me back to my accommodation in Carrbridge.
So despite there being limited public transport on this Sunday, I was still able to visit the places I had planned to see, and was happy to overcome my old issue with Sundays being a thorn in the traveller’s side. I had overcome, and I enjoyed it very much!
For my final day in the Cairngorms, I visited a few places of interest to the south of Carrbridge. Firstly, a short train journey from the station to the small Highland town of Kingussie (pronounced Kin-yu-see), as there were a couple of places of interest nearby that I wanted to see. I had initially planned to spend three hours in Kingussie and then five hours in Aviemore, but reconsidering the train timetable and things to do in each place, I changed this to five hours in Kingussie and three in Aviemore. I think this was such a great decision to make, considering Aviemore - more on that below.
From Kingussie
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Ballater to Carrbridge train station, it was a mile walk out of town to the nearby Ruthven Barracks – definitely my highlight of the day, and visiting it continued to piece together my understanding of the 18
th century Jacobite rebellions, and the English Hanoverian “redcoat” responses. For although the hill mound the Barracks are built upon has been the site of defensive buildings for centuries, it was only after the first Jacobite uprising of 1715 that the English authorities built it up as the defensive garrison building we see today, along with three others in the Highlands, linked by the afore-mentioned Old Military Roads, constructed by British Army Officer General Wade in the middle of the 18
th century.
Since Mary Queen of Scots’ son, James I of England, was crowned King of England and Scotland in 1603, the two countries were united under the Royal House of Stuart. However, when Queen Anne, a Stuart, died in 1707, she had no legitimate heir to the throne, and following this King George I, of the House of Hanover, took the throne. The Jacobites were supporters of Stuart royal contender James Stuart, son of King James II of Great Britain, to become King of the
Welcome to Carrbridge
Cairngorms National Park country, rather than George I, and had supporters in both Scotland and England apparently, though most significantly the former. The Jacobites also sought to put James on the throne as he was a Catholic, as opposed to Protestant George I, and thus as well as a conflict of Scottish against English, it also seems to have been a conflict of Catholics against Protestants.
James Stuart was nicknamed “The Old Pretender”, being a pretender to the throne, and his leadership of the first Jacobite uprising of 1715 was quelled by the Hanoverian “redcoats”. Following this uprising, redcoat military presence in Scotland grew substantially with the building of military garrisons such as the Ruthven Barracks, and military roads connecting them, to maintain order in the country. In 1745, James Stuart’s son, Charles Stuart, also known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, or “The Young Pretender”, led a second Jacobite rebellion, which actually reached as far south in England as Derby, before the Hanoverians forced them back, and entered into the infamous Battle of Culloden with them in 1746, winning the English a resounding victory. I plan to visit the Culloden battlefield in a few days’ time, so I am sure I will write
Carrbridge
Caingorms National Park more about this then. For now, I believe I have pieced together this piece of history, and am quite impressed with myself for having done this simply by travelling around the Highlands of Scotland and seeing the remnants of this time, rather than reading about it.
So Ruthven Barracks was built to keep military order in Scotland following the first Jacobite rebellion of 1715. After the 1746 Battle of Culloden, however, retreating Jacobites were able to take control of the Barracks. When Bonnie Prince Charlie issued his final instruction though, in an admittance of defeat, “let every man seek his own safety in the best way he can”, the Jacobites stationed at the Barracks set fire to it and left. It has thus been left in ruins to this day. Still, the place is a wonder to visit, and evocative of the days when up to 120 Hanoverian redcoats were stationed there, keeping watch over the strategically important Highland position of the garrison. Behind the garrison were the stables, used to keep the horses which dragoons used to patrol the military roads throughout the region.
After a very enjoyable visit to the Barracks, I headed a further half-a-mile
away from Kingussie, to the RSPB Insh Marshes Nature Reserve. For most of my two hours there, I had the place completely to myself, and enjoyed looking out over the marshes and the landscape from its three hides there, situated in beautiful viewpoint positions. I only spotted geese and a few cute little birds at the birdfeeders though, but that is fine – I often visit RSPB centres more for their beauty and tranquility, rather than the desire to see a bird of interest.
I then headed back into the village of Kingussie, and enjoyed a short wander around its tourist shops and lanes, before taking another train back the way I had come earlier, stopping off this time at the town of Aviemore.
My goodness, Aviemore – what a place! Whilst I admit, it was a bit of a shock to the system arriving in the tiny village of Carrbridge two days ago and taking myself down a gear or two, I felt that I had completely made the right decision to stay here rather than in Aviemore. Aviemore is considered the capital of the Cairngorms, and it was just simply a tourist zoo. It was filled
with throngs of tourists with ice-creams, screaming children and grumpy teenagers. The main thoroughfare through town, Grampian Road, was full of touristy souvenir and gift shops, and the whole place just felt so at odds with the surrounding peace of the Scottish Highlands. No, this place was certainly not for me. Fortunately, I found a lovely forested area just to the west of town, the Craigellachie National Nature Reserve, where I spent a good amount of my time there. On the way back into town, I stopped off at the quite famous Macdonald Aviemore Resort, with its hotel, shopping centre, cinema, and all sorts of other tourist facilities, as it was simply interesting to see, and one of the more famous hotels in the region. I then took a bus back to Carrbridge, noting that buses were actually operating on this Bank Holiday in Scotland. Finally, walking back to my BnB, I took an alternative route away from the streets through the Glencharnoch Wood, which was just beautiful. It seems quite ironic, out of all the walking through various forests and nature reserves that I have done during these last six days in the Highlands, that this small little wood
on the back doorstep of my BnB just has to have been the most beautiful. I particularly loved the vivid green colour of the undergrowth beneath the trees, although I unfortunately did not spot a red squirrel which the woods are famous for, nor have I seen a red squirrel yet for that matter. I shall continue looking.
So, my time in the Cairngorms National Park has come to an end. I’ve very much enjoyed these last few days, filled with forested walks, hilltop views and baronial castles. Tomorrow I head even further north, to the very tip of mainland Great Britain in fact. I take a train first from Carrbridge to Inverness, and then change trains for a very long four-hour, 21-stop, train ride from Inverness to Britain’s northernmost town, Thurso, which will be my base for three days in exploring this farthest-flung region of my country. I plan to write up my next one from there, in a few days’ time.
Thank you for reading my blog, and until the next time, all the best 😊
Alex
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
I love these cows
I fell in love with these fellows!