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| Glenbrittle |
Woke up in lovely Glenbrittle, to a pretty miserable day, it was that horribly drizzly weather that can only happen in Scotland in June, my fellow hostelers were still a hostile bunch and after my preceding three wonderful days in Raasay and Flodigarry I was feeling very disgruntled. I tried to make the best of a bad situation and went for a cycle but it was in a forest and dark and spooky in the mist. So I decided to drive on one of the few roads in Skye that I still wanted to see which was the one to Portnalong , but the whole Glenbrittle experience was not feeling as if it was a good one to me.
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| Eigg and Muck |
So I decided to stick to the Plan B and leave Skye early to go in search of my Ancestors in Aviemore, although this was part of my original plan I had ran out of days, and had planned to possibly go on the Saturday instead but it
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Portnalong Ferry
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felt right to go now. Of course my tales of Glenbrittle may not of put you off Glenbrittle entirely so if you would like to visit the hostel there please visit
http://www.syha.org.uk/home.aspx, I would also like to reiterate that I only stayed there one night , so it was an isolated group of guests I encountered, the warden very nice and the rooms whilst basic were adequate. Also the shitty weather may have also effected my moods. So I hope my comments will not be taken overly seriously. Anyway back on the road I went .............
Now this was a bit risky although I didn't realise it for a while, at this stage all I wanted to do was hot foot it, it off Skye and go back to the Mainland , my first idea that this might be a bad idea was on leaving Skye I was pulled over by the Police, being a fairly novice driver and generally a law abiding citizen this actually nearly gave me a heart attack, even after the police had a wee joke with me and explained they were just doing spot checks on cars headed to Rockness, and allowed me to go, without doing any checks on me or the vehicle , I still needed a minute or two to calm down. Anyway carried on and started to head towards the East, on what was actually a pretty amazing drive. Was stopping regularly to try and call the SYHA to try and change my booking for Glenbrittle to somewhere near Aviemore but being so deep in the country could not get a signal, finally got through about 4, only to be told that that the hostels were almost full to capacity and I needed to wait until 5 to try the Cairngorm lodge , when I did get through the guy literally laughed me off and said that I would be extremely lucky to get a bed when Rockness was on. Decided I may as well carry on and continue but was resigned to the fact that I may well have to drive all the way home. Near Aviemore I took a random junction into a small town and filled up on petrol. Decided on impulse to ask if there were any hostels or bunk rooms and was referred to a bunk house , a mile or so away. The directions were a bit vague and knowing my sense of direction was reluctant on embarking on a wild goose chase which may end up with me having to head toward Edinburgh anyway, but then someone else in the petrol station suggested the Hotel directly opposite may have bunk rooms , not only did they have them but they had one available. So therefore I found myself staying at the traditionally Scottish Carrbridge Hotel
http://carrbridge.co.uk/html/hotel.html. After checking in to a small but perfectly formed bunk room , I decided to explore the village that I was choosing to call home that evening.
There is not much to Carrbridge, but like my bunk room it was small but perfectly formed, there was the attractive hotel, the charming bridge, a shop or two and a cafe. I had a bite to eat in the Cafe, lovely service from the local teenagers, the food not so hot. Carrbridge was almost exactly where I wanted it to be and before retiring I decided to visit the house of my Grandfather's birth and my fathers Christening in nearby Rothiemurcus:
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| Al-t-Na Cabner |
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| North |
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| The Road to Morlich |
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