Aviemore, Cairncorms
Tuesday 24th – Thursday 26th August 2021
Second stop of our Scotland road trip was Aviemore in the Cairngorms.
Day 2
We arrived at the Cairngorm hotel at lunchtime, too early to check in so we had lunch first. Steak sandwiches all round which were delicious (lulling us into a false sense of food security!!). After lunch we decided to chat with the guy on reception about the room changes. Was the oddest conversation where he told us we would have to pack up all our things and be out of the first room by 11am and wouldn’t get into the new room until 3pm. When we said that was a little unreasonable he was annoyed and pretty defensive! Eventually he moved people checking in the following day to a different room so we could leave our things through the day!
We went for a bit of a walk to kill time before we could get into the room and stopped off for an ice cream – Turkish delight flavour for Steve which was a new one! Got back to the hotel and into our room, to find out, thanks to a staff member flooding the room above ours, they had downgraded us to the worlds smallest double bedroom! But on the plus side they had given us a bottle of Prosecco.
We went for an explore and found a deserted hotel / holiday resort, a not-a-cinema, a pool which we didn’t think we were allowed to use and lots of places we knew we didn’t want to go to for tea!
Not sure what to do with the afternoon we popped in past the tourist information place where a lovely lady refused to look at Steve and would only talk to Vikki (clearly she could smell the Englishness of him!!).
She gave us some great information so on her recommendation we booked dinner at The Rowen Tree, headed to Loch Insh (which was heaving) to find out about potential water activities and drove down to Loch Morlich for some photos.
A quick trip back to the room to get changed, enjoy a bit of traditional Scottish music courtesy of the piper out the front of the hotel, and then we went out for delicious burgers for dinner, followed by a return trip to Loch Morlich to watch a beautiful sunset (along with about 2 million midges!!) before heading back to the room for Prosecco (and beer) in bed.
Day 3
The day started with breakfast, not the best we’ve ever had – conference coffee and Steve had stinky smoked haddock! After breakfast we headed off for our quad bike adventure, via Costa coffee!
While we were waiting at the meeting point Steve nipped to the toilet and walked in on some poor woman, thankfully who wasn’t also on the quad bike excursion! After a fairly quick briefing we got our helmets and goggles and were ready to go, not before Steve got told off for going to fast on the practice run though!
About an hour whizzing through a country estate on the quad bikes, up and down hills, through heather, splashing across streams and finishing up with a bit of Highland cow dodging and wet feet for Steve from the final run up the stream!
Pub lunch in the sun, gloopy camembert with not enough bread for Steve and steak ciabatta for Vikki (third meal in a row with beef!) followed the quad biking and we planned our afternoon, after discovering the river trip we were going to do was cancelled due to a broken trailer.
Back to the hotel after lunch to get into the new room, which was enormous in comparison to the previous night and even included a sofa in the turret with a pretty impressive view.
After a spot of tartan duck shopping, another ice cream (mint this time) and a coffee despite not liking whisky Steve decided while in Scotland it had to be done so we headed off to Glenlivit Distillery for him to do some tasting.
There were so many to see, including some pretty pricey ones, but with no idea what we were talking about or looking for we blagged it for a bit. Steve tried three different whiskeys which apparently should have tasted very different and we left with three 50ml bottles which Steve had no intention of actually drinking!
In need of another decent coffee we headed back to the hotel via Costa, only to find it shut (things being shut seemed to be the theme of the week!).
We got back to the hotel just in time to hear the piper, and had a far better view from the window of our new room, however the piper wasn’t quite as good as the previous night.
Making the most of the smart tv and the sofa in the turret we spent the evening relaxing and decided to eat the hotel.
Deciding the two hour wait for a table was a bit much we opted for room service which turned out to be a bit of a disaster thanks to the combination of a stroppy receptionist taking the order, school dinner style haggis, neeps and tatties, inedible cajun chicken and butterscotch on everything! Oh and Steve kept dropping the phone on the floor when ordering!!
We ended the day with an evening walk and then back for some more TV and wine and beer in the room. A pint of ice in the bathroom sink helped chill the beer but did mean hand washing had to be done in the bath. Oh and Steve managed to pour beer over the sofa!
Day 4
Another beautiful sunny day and another less than ideal breakfast and we headed off for a scenic drive to Lochinver, via Loch Ness.
