Duke of Edinburgh Gold Aviemore Bruar

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8/3/2019 Duke of Edinburgh Gold Aviemore Bruar

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Aviemore – House of Bruar

To ensure our kit and food supplies were appropriate for our finalexpedition that would be covering a similar amount of ground

To ensure we were able to cope with the physical demands of thefinal expedition.

To observe local landmarks and places of interest.

Our first day walk began at the Cairngorm Youth Hostel on the ski-road near Aviemore. We had stayed at the hostel overnight so wecould finalise our route and prepare ourselves for the challengeahead. There had been some snowfall overnight and there was alight dusting of snow on the ground.

We walked towards along the edge of Loch Morlich and then enteredsome woodland, making our way in the direction of Loch an Eilen.The navigation on day one was the toughest of the three days. Muchof the walk was through woodland and visibility was poor. When we

finally arrived at our camp at Lagganlea we were glad for the rest.We soon had our tents set up and has somewhere to shelter fromthe heavy rain! Dinner was cooked in the rain, but it tasted great...well, some of it did!

A Stag Rut takes place during the breeding season. Stags becomeaggressive and fight with one other for dominance.

We had to take a detour around the farm because passage through itwould be dangerous.

We had breakfast, put away the tents and then tidied up thecampsite and set off (about an hour later than intended... but I’mnot naming names!) . We contacted Mr. Maguire to let the teachersknow that we had left camp. This walk began at Lagganlea andfollowed the road along to Ruthven barracks. It was here that we metwith the teachers and people tended to some blisters. We stopped

here for lunch and laughed at foreign tourists who thought thatRuthven barracks was an attraction. After lunch we set off again andwere soon in the small village that is Kingussie. I must say it wastempting just to get the train from here all the way back to Glasgow.

We followed the route 7 national cycle track to where we made campat Raliea. Light was beginning to fade so we quickly spoke to theteachers, collected water from them, and then travelled the last 2kmto our camp. By the time we had put the tents up it was pitch black.Like most of day 2 it was dry and this lightened the spirits!

•The first castle recorded to

have been built on this siteappeared in 1229.•The first castle at Ruthven wasdestroyed in 1451, but asecond castle was re-built in itsplace in 1459 as a much

grander fortification.•The barracks were designed tohouse 120 troops, split betweentwo blocks.•In August 1745 some 200

Jacobites tried to capture

Ruthven Barracks. A force of just 12 British redcoats,commanded by a SergeantMolloy, fought them off with theloss of just one man.

The remains of the barracks today are pretty much how it was left bythe departing Jacobites on 17 April 1746. Most of the exterior wallsremain but little of the interior structure, flooring or roofing

survives.

We had breakfast and packed up our freezing cold tents. We met theteachers in a car park just after turning right at a junction. Gavin haddecided in the morning that his feet were too sore to continuewalking and he had been collected by the mini-bus. Mr. McClementwas determined to get him walking however and after some first aidtreatment Gavin was dropped at the car park to re-join the group.

He was minus his backpack and was wearing Russell’s plimsolls.

Gavin gave it his best shot, but he decided that the best thing wouldbe to stop and he was picked up at Dalwhinnie brewery. FromDalwhinnie to Loch Garry seemed to take forever. We walked andwalked, and then when we stopped for a rest the minibus arrived.

Mr. Anderson brought ‘good news and good news’ one of whichbeing that he would take us to the campsite in the bus (we hadalready walked long enough that day) and the other being that thecampsite was good and had water nearby.

Oh A9, oh what a long wayWe left Loch Garry

To travel you, took us all day

We had a lot to carryOh I can’t wait until May

The day started with breaking the ice off our tents before leaving the

campsite at the shores of Loch Garry, early on the crisp Mondaymorning. We continued south on route 7 covering the remainingdistance to our final destination. We were all very relieved to havefinished and enjoyed our hard-earned fish and chips in Pitlochry at

the end of the day.

Duke of Edinburgh Gold Aviemore Bruar

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