Saturday May 25th was a spectacular day in many ways. The weather was perfect: blue skies, sunshine all day and not much wind.

I had already booked into the Smugglers Hostel in Tomintoul, so I decided to take advantage of the drying room at the Braemar campground in the morning so I could pack the tent away dry. Consequently, I got a bit of a late start. I cycled out of the campground at 9:07 am.

My planned route followed the A93 along the River Dee to Crathie and then a climb through the Cairngorms and over the Lecht Ski Center.

Before turning off the A93, I made my detour into the village of Crathie where Balmoral Castle is situated.

I decided to seize the opportunity to see the Scottish home of the Royal Family (who knows if/when I’ll be back) and I was in luck because it was open to the public.

I bought a ticket and proceeded to do a self guided tour of the estate… or a tiny part of it. The public are only allowed into one room in the castle and photography is not allowed so I don’t have any pictures of the interior. But there was an exhibit of paintings by Prince Charles and an exhibit of costumes worn by various monarchs and members of the Royal Family, including Queen Victoria.

I spent about 90 minutes at the castle and before leaving the village of Crathie, I visited the church where the Royal Family frequently attend church when in residence at Balmoral.

The next section of my route was on a beautiful small road through the Cairngorms before joining the A944 for the iconic Lecht Climb.

While on the first climb, I asked someone to take my photograph and it turned out he grew up in Liverpool just a few streets away from me and had attended the same school! Small world.

When I arrived in the small town of Corgarff, I stopped in a cafe to fuel up for the last climb of the day. And then proceeded up to Lecht Ski Center. The climb was very steep in places and I did plenty of walking!

The road was spectacular and I was very happy for the great weather so I could really enjoy the scenery.

At the top of a climb that hit 20% in places, I stopped at The Watchers. This is an art installation representing standing stones near Corgarff Castle.

The photographs don’t really do this climb justice, but it really was very steep in places and on par with some of the grades in Colorado.

I descended very quickly into the town of Tomintoul where I accessed my room in the Smugglers Hostel, took a shower, and found a restaurant for dinner. I had to wait for an hour for my reservation so I went into The Richmond Arms across the street and received a lesson in how to drink single malt whisky from the bartender.

Tomintoul has its own distillery but I was too late for a visit. However, I tried a 12 year old and titrated five drops of water into it as instructed. Very good but too strong for me so when the bartender wasn’t watching, I added more water and sipped on the whisky until my table was ready at the restaurant.

The food at the restaurant was excellent. I had haggis to start and then local salmon. Both delicious.

I went back to the hostel to discover I was sharing the room with five guys all motorcyclists from Germany. They were thankfully very quiet and I slept well. 😴