Day 12 Wednesday 15th June Dunblane to Calvine

Another enjoybale day's cycling. I set off this morning from Dunblane heading north on the B8033 through the villages of Ashfield, Kinbuck and Braco, where I picked up the A822 through Muthill (there was ceratinly a hill but I didn't see any muts) towards Crieff. The Thai restaurant owner suggested I continue on the A822 towards Dunkeld and so avoid the busy section of A9 around Perth. This turned out to be a great call. The A822 through Glen Almond and then Strath Braan was a magnificent cycle showing the spectacular Scottish countryside at it's best.

At one stage it was really eerie with a dampness in the air and peaks either side of the road, notably Meall Reamhar, which was shrouded in low lying cloud / mist, it felt like I was travelling through a natural tunnel.

At Amulree I stopped for a quick drink outside the Amulree Hotel, which thrived during the 50s-70s, but is now closed and up for sale. I then pressed on towards Tochry, where I had my first mishap. Durning the morning I had been thinking how fortunate I had been and was praising Adam for his choice of tyres (wrong). Less than half an hour later I experienced my first puncture - the tyre actually split and blew completely, with no chance of repair. Fortunately, I was only 6 miles away from our picnic lunch rendezvous and the support car arrived within 15 minutes with a spare and a cup of tea.

The offending tyre

Being replaced

After a quick clean up, we pressed on to Dunkeld for a lunch of smoked salmon, crab pate and chicken portions - superb service from George.

The short stretch to Dunkeld was not that straight forward, as weel had to undergo a detour to avoid a wide load. The wide load turned out tobe the components of a wind turbine. The blades were absolutely massive when seen on the back of a lorry.

Although only an hour away, we decided that we would head into Pitlochry and check in at our guesthouse - the very comfortable Craigatin House and Courtyard www.craigatinhouse.co.uk.

To avoid the extremely busy A9, my bike sat nav suggested I take the B898, running parellel to the main road and along the River Tay. It then took me on an "unpaved" road (which turned out to be the 7 cycle route) and over a private bridge across the river. What a great choice of route. I came across a deer on the road while passing through a wooded glen.

George then proceeded to explore Pitlochry whilst I took the bold decision to get back on the bike. Tomorrow's leg is a planned 88 miles to Inverness, so it made sense to eat up a few of those. I travelled as far as I could on B roads ending up at Calvine. This included passing through the village of Killiecrankie - I couldn't help a quick thumbs up and a fan-dabi-dozi.

 I then rode the last 3 miles on A9 whilst I waited for George to collect me (12 miles in the bank). The journey on the A9 was not very pleasant with loads of heavy and fast moving traffic. I will be spending some time on the internet once I have completed this blog to see if I can find an alternative cycle route to make tomorrow's leg slightly more pleasurable.

We ended the day with a wonderful meal at The Auld Smiddy www.auldsmiddyinn.co.uk, topped off with a wee dram of local whiskey - Blair Atholl. I think George may well invetigate the distillery tomorrow. We are also looking forward to seeing Phil Cross in the morning, as he plans to meet us before we leave the guest house.

Today's mileage: 62 miles
Duration: 4 hours 46 minutes cycling
Calories burned: 4799
Max speed: 28.62 mph
Average speed: 13.02 mph 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93779420