Sunday, May 19 - Day Seven on The Speyside Way

It was an easy-peasy day because we didn't hike. This was our day off to spend in the medium-sized village of Grantown-on-Spey. I've been spelling it Granton, because that's how it's pronounced, but it's really Grantown. Now that we've cleared that up …

Our hosts, Pearl and Martin, are ex-lawyers who threw off that busy life and opened the bed-and-breakfast, Rosehall, two years ago. Their breakfast is good, their conversation is addictingly interesting, and the B&B is right in the heart of town. We have had the best time ever.

Martin felt so bad that almost everything, including the laundry -- yikes! -- was closed because it's Sunday. Not too long ago, everything would have been closed. So Martin offered to drive some of us to a local bird sanctuary for ospreys. Kathy, Patty, and Jessica flew off with him and had a good time wandering around the preserve.

Matt, Tom, and I -- I especially -- continued to recover from yesterday's walk. We did do a short walk to the end of town, through a nice park, and to the River Spey, the first time we've gotten close enough to dip our toes in it since the town of Speyside. We met a couple with their 14-year-old dog. The dog was arthritic and his back legs were dragging a little, but the little guy was enjoying his walk and getting to meet new people. They made a very sweet threesome.

Then I washed socks and re-arranged my suitcase for the umpteenth time.

Before dinner we got together with Martin and he told us stories about his wife and daughters. Every story was charming, eloquent, and done with a light touch, even when he strayed into political issues. He and his wife are English, so they have to step lightly in a Scotland that currently has a referendum to become independent from Great Britain.

At Martin's daughter's wedding, he put a bottle of local Speyside whisky at each table. He has challenged me to name what those whiskies might be by breakfast tomorrow morning. I am such a rank amateur and have only dabbled in tasting the Speyside liquor. I'm in deep trouble, I think.

At dinner tonight someone asked Jessica if we were on the Whisky Tour, and she said yes, without thinking. This is my bad influence on the group.

Before I forget, today's whisky talley is: Dalwhinnie -- good, but I knew that already.

Glensomething, provided by our host -- good but with a strong aftertaste

Isle of Jura, provided by our host -- excellent, but I already knew that, too!

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant right across the street. We waited a loooong time after ordering before getting our dishes. The restaurant wasn't very full, and the chef probably didn't want to pre-cook a lot of food because it's not the high tourist season. The locals eat a traditional Sunday dinner in the afternoon, rather than dinner at night, so they weren't going to be coming in.

The wait was worth it. The food was excellent. From tikkas to sags to biryanis to homemade naans, it was superior.

An easy day but great in so many ways. (If you don't count the battered hamburger that, fortunately, nobody ordered.)

The sky is clearing and things are looking sunny and warm for tomorrow's 11-mile hike.

The view from my third story window.

The unfortunately closed Red Sock Laundry.

The town hall with its clock tower, pretty much right across the street.

Rosehall. Stay here if you're ever in Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland!

Saturday, May 18 - Day Six on The Speyside Way

Tom, Matt, and I were the only walkers today. People with more discernment than we decided to stay warm and dry. It rained or mizzled (mist + rain) ALL DAY LONG. We left Ballindaloch at 10 a.m. and didn't get to Granton-on-the-Spey until 5:30. 14.5 miles. 7.5 hours.

This was a hard day to me, rated moderate by the guide people. I rated it okay until my feet wore out about Mile 7. Then it was rated mission impossible. My feet hurt. That's the difference between walking 14 miles four years ago on the Coast to Coast Walk and now. 

Kathy, Jessica, and Patty arrived in Granton-on-Spey with the luggage taxi about 10:30. Everything was closed. The museum, the library, anything fun … except the bookstore. Loyal print book buyers that they are, they bought some books. I won't get to meet the bookseller because the bookstore is closed tomorrow. Small towns have their own schedules!

Do you know what mog bog is? That's probably not how it's spelled, but it's Hungarian for "good grief." I decided (or maybe am just repeating what someone else said) that a muddy footpath in a bog is a mog. We walked through quite a few mogs, sheep pastures (I reached my quota during the Coast to Coast and am now working on someone else's quota), and long stretcches of Oregon-like forests. So, "mog bog" has two meanings for me, which can be summed up as: "Mog Bog! What am I doing walking through this mog in the bog?"

Everytime I thought well, this must be the last hill, there was another. There were four long uphill patches, each one more annoying than the last. (This is another sign that four years have passed since I had to do anything quite this strenuous.) Downhill wasn't much better. Once it was so precipitous, I thought the path couldn't possibly go that way. Matt passed me handily on the uphill, and I won the downhill pieces. His was harder. Tom was sherpa-man and walked behind me. He was (fortunately for me) in charge of picking up whatever I accidentally dropped. (Actually, everyone is on that duty. Patty picked up the tote bag I left at the bar we went to tonight!) So Tom has to go at my pace. P.S. That is why in the pictures you will see Matt most of the time. He's almost always ahead. If you can't see Matt in the pictures, that's because he's too far ahead!

At almost the halfway point, we ran into two people going the opposite way. They sounded North American, so I asked them where they were from. I said that I was from Oregon. One of the women looked confused and said, Portland and my friend is from Bellingham. What? I said, I live in the northwest. She said, I live in the southeast. Whew! If she had said northwest, the coincidence meter would have exploded. Tempting the coincidence meter: She lives near Murder by the Book and has walked by the vacant store several times.

We met a man who was going the other way but he had already passed us going our way. Huh? Matt found out that the man liked to walk the Speyside this way. Go halfway, turn around and come back to his car, drive home.

Going our way, we met two men who were running -- RUNNING -- part of the route. They had started out 7-1/2 hours earlier in Buckie doing a combination of running and mountain biking. That means they ran/biked about 65 miles in 7-1/2 hours. Crazy. They easily passed us, and later we saw their mountain bike tire tracks. They were running to benefit Katrina Brown, an Iraq veteran who needed to go to the U.S. for treatment. 

We came across an extraordinary settlement of what Matt thought were osprey, right next to the track. They were very defensive and squawked at us and took to the air. I wish I had a picture of the birds, but that is when my camera chose to break. Mflpxwkwzypxly!

Later during our last stretch of the wild just as we hit civilization in Granton, we saw a grouse. It wasn't the rare capercaillie grouse that goes "clop clop," in whose terrain we were walking, but it was satisfying to see one of Scotland's trademark birds anyway.

After I sat for awhile after getting to the B&B, every muscle in my leg froze up and I hobbled -- hobbled! -- to dinner. I had a great vegetable curry. Tom had a great chicken curry. Patty had the game hotpot similar to Matt's the other night. Kathy had a locally grown steak. Jessica said she had stuffed herself at lunch so she ordered the cheese plate, which turned out to be more mighty than hors d'oeuvre-y. Matt looked at the mostly ordinary menu and found the one strange thing to order: pork cheeks.

To bed and Advil and much whining.

Tamdhu - will satisfy everyone, inoffensive

Mortlach - verra verra gud

"No Can Do" - Matt and Kathy have renamed the whisky Knockando -- it's also what it's rated -- no can do.

Matt's breakfast with potato scone and black pudding.

This and the following pictures show what a variety of environments we walked through, all of them wet, some of them with bunnies.

We walked on the sticks.

These are bathtubs in case the cows want a nice, leisurely bath, I guess.

This is the highest point of our walk, so I wanted it commemorated that I made it to the top.

These two lambs were lost and bleated piteously. Their mother was about fifty feet away, in plain sight. She was baa-ing at them. They'd cry, she'd bleat back. The lambs were frantic because they could hear her but couldn't find her. Lambs must have pretty bad eyesight. Finally the got close enough that they saw their mom and went frolicking over to her. Maaa-m, maaa-m, they said.

Excuse me, maaa'am, could we sneak by you?

These were the runners for Katrina Brown. Link here.

The meeting will now come to order.

Matt was ahead of us 99% of the time.