A very comfortable night in the hostel and a chance to sit and chat with our fellow guests, a retired telecoms engineer who had travelled the world with work and was in Scotland Munro bagging. Coincidentally, he knew Costa Teguise very well as his father used to own a time share property there. The other two guests where Canadian hospitality consultants and cocktail masters from Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a ‘working trip’ to Scotland visiting distilleries. The designated driver for the day had brought his samples back to the hostel and was writing tasting notes as he compared them. The oldest and most expensive one was a 25 year old whisky, matured in a Pedro Ximenez (sweet Spanish sherry) barrel. Steve likes whisky and Pedro Ximenez sherry so he now has some new whiskies to search out and sample.
Another mixed bag weather wise, very much like yesterday, but as people keep pointing out to us, at least it’s keeping the midges at bay.
We followed the NCN 7 all day, a mixture of minor roads and cycle paths.
A much shorter day, so plenty of time for tea stops. Our first port of call was Ralia Cafe, which we needed to visit as we had been told about the ‘Highland Coo’ statue which we wanted to photograph.
Our next stop was Newtonmore, with its famous ‘wild cat centre’, a 10 kilometre trail around the village, hunting for 132 painted cats. Not wanting to add another 10 kms to our route we decided to see how many we could spot without leaving our route. As it started to rain a coffee shop interrupted our hunt and we lost count.
A lot more heavily laden cyclists en route in both directions today and a few backpackers.
We arrived at Kingussie at 1400, so time for a leisurely lunch before we could book into our accommodation, The Osprey Hotel at 1600.
We failed to note that yesterday we entered Perthshire our 16th county.
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