Day 16 - Inverness and Aviemore

We woke up early to do some laundry and buy some last minute warm weather clothes for the bike trip. Chris (“the Bear”), our guide from H&I adventures picked us at the B&B at noon. (I’ll refer to him as “the Bear” throughout the rest of the post to not confuse him with the other Chris). We went to their office, a beautiful old converted stable where we met Donald (the organizer of the trip). They had coffee, tea and a delicious lunch of Caprese salad, three scottish cheeses and oat cakes waiting for us. The milk from one of the cheeses (a cheddar from Mull of Kintyre) came from Donald’s family’s farm and was our favorite. As scared as I was (disclaimer from Chris: Bogey wrote this post), I knew I was in good hands after that. The Bear fitted us for our bikes and we were off to the Cairngorms National Park for a test ride. He used this as an opportunity to assess our comfort and skills in order to create a custom biking itinerary for us over the next few days. We rode for about two hours through forest and glen in Rothiemurchus estate. I was very happy to have detailed instructions and coaching from our expert guide! We got settled into our B&B in Aviemore, the Ravenscraig and then walked down the street out to dinner at the Winking Owl where we got a good taste of some of the local beer made by Cairngorms Brewery.Read more