LEJOG Day 55 – Blair Atholl to Dalwhinnie . 24.55 miles. Cumulative 1006.78 miles.

A mixed bag of weather today, sun,clouds, showers and wind.

Despite camping at Blair Atholl Castle we only got a brief glimpse of the castle from the road after we left the campsite.

The route today followed NCN 7, the first section was on minor roads until we reached the village of Calvine, the remainder was on a dedicated cycle/foot path. A mixture of surfaces which suited us but maybe not so good for cyclists. We saw a few on route, one that we chatted to was on day 10 of cycling LEJOG and was heading to his home in Aviemore for the night before the final push to John O’Groats. The wind made cycling very tricky.

Initially the route took us through forest, but became more exposed as we climbed above the tree line to Drumochter summit, the highest point on the Scottish cycle network. We had to fight a strong headwind, along with squally showers at times. Just before the summit we passed the 1,000 mile point of our walk.

We assumed it would be all down hill from the summit, but it was a mainly flat walk only losing a little altitude on our way to Dalwhinnie, but the wind switched and we had a tail wind to push us along.

Some fantastic scenery again despite the mixed weather.

Our accommodation was The Old School Hostel in Dalwhinnie. We weren’t sure what to expect as it was our first hostel experience but we were pleasantly surprised with our room and the hostels comfortable facilities. The log burner in the lounge made it very cosy.