Braemar

With one day of my summer holidays left before I returned to work, I fancied taking a drive up the A93 from Perth to Glenshee. I hadn't been further than the town of Blairgowrie on this road and reckoned it would be a nice excursion to push into a skiing area of the Highlands.

It was a bright Sunday morning and we set off at 10am, heading up the M90, over the River Tay on the Friarton Bridge and up past Perth Racecourse and Scone Palace. The County of Perth is sometimes referred to as Big Tree Country and we saw some fine arboreal specimens on the roadside as we approached Blairgowrie including the Meikleour Beech Hedge. Planted in 1745 on the Meikleour Estate, it is said the hedge grows towards the heavens because the men who installed it were killed at the Battle of Culloden. The hedge is noted in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest and longest on earth, reaching almost 100 feet in height and measuring 1740 feet in length. It is usually trimmed every decade, although the most recent trim - which took place in 2019 - was the first cut in almost 20 years. We passed through Blairgowrie and entered the realm of Highland Perthshire. The mountain backdrop was stunning and we noted a viewpoint to stop at on the way back. We pulled into the car-park of a charming little tearoom but unfortunately the business was closed today. Glenshee translates from Gaelic as the Glen of the Fairies and the little people certainly have an attractive home - in the summer at least. I tried not to think too much about the time 15 years earlier when we visited the miniature Fairy Glen on the Isle of Skye and I reversed the car into a ditch beside a single track road and the local RAC had to come and pull us out. Not much chance of that happening today (touch wood) as the A93 was a broad modern highway built to accommodate the hordes of skiers who make their way up here in winter. The chairlift infrastructure spanned the slopes and although the sport obviously takes place during the colder months, the café inside the ski centre are open all year round. We carried on as we had brought our own packed lunches and we continued to the Spittal of Glenshee, the meeting point of four glens. There was a car park here but not much else in the way of facilities. The large hotel that once stood in this spot was destroyed in a huge blaze back in 2014 and the site is still awaiting redevelopment. The original intention was to drive as far as this point but the tourist village of Braemar was just 15 miles further along the road so we decided to cross into Aberdeenshire and go for a look. Braemar is of course well known for its annual Highland Games, usually attended by members of the Royal Family who are based in nearby Balmoral for their annual sojourn to the Highlands.

The tourism industry in and around Braemar can be traced back to the 1850s when the Royal Train carrying Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would roll into the area every year. The railway initially ran to Aboyne and later to Ballater. Victoria continued to make the annual pilgrimage after Albert's untimely death in 1861. The route eventually closed in 1966, Butcher Beeching showing no sympathy. The village was bustling as we drove in and parked. As fate would have it, we stumbled across a chocolate shop and a box of truffles was acquired. Not a bad start! We had a look around and viewed the Clunie Water from the historic bridge. A traditional tearoom provided lunch and Nicole bought me a leather wallet from one of the many shops. It holds my cards rather snugly, cash not being something frequently carried these days. One has to wonder for how long the nationwide network of free ATMs can continue. Will they go the way of phone boxes? The community controlled castle is situated just outside the village and we drove along and parked in the grounds. Currently closed for a £1.5 million restoration project, with funding coming from the National Lottery and Historic Scotland as well as local initiatives, the building is scheduled to reopen in 2023. Built in 1628 by the Earl of Mar as his Highland hunting lodge, the castle was burned in the first Jacobite uprising to keep Government soldiers at bay. Rebuilt as a garrison fort to house the Hanoverian troops, the new castle was fashioned into a beautiful family home for the chiefs of Clan Farquharson, often hosting royal visitors. Opened as a tourist attraction by the present Laird and his flamboyant wife, the community has successfully run the place since 2007, raising the necessary finance for essential roof repairs to keep the show running. Before departing, we couldn't resist trying out the labyrinth in the gardens. In case you don't know, a labyrinth differs from a maze by having a straightforward route to the centre that can simply be followed. By contrast, a maze is a complex web of branching pathways and decisions must be taken by the walker, some of which may lead to dead ends.

On the journey back down the A93 we stopped at the viewing area we had spotted on the inward leg. Part of the Cairnwell Pass through the Grampian Mountains, this particular spot is known as the Devil's Elbow. With a summit of 2199 feet, the pass is the highest road in Britain and the apex separates the shires of Perth and Aberdeen. Historically a drover's route, the pass is often blocked by snow at the height of winter and large metal snow gates are then closed at either end to prevent vehicles disappearing in the drifts. The actual Devil's Elbow is a notoriously steep and narrow double hairpin bend that has been by-passed since the 1960s by a modern straight section on stilts. The original route can now be walked or cycled and informational panels in the car park showed photographs of buses making the precarious manoeuvre back in the day, with several passengers opting to walk alongside rather than remain onboard. Maybe not the sort of place you'd want to meet a petrol tanker coming the other way! Rather than take the A93 all the way back to Perth, we decided to cut across country to Pitlochry on the A924. This road branches off at Bridge of Cally and follows a parabolic curve (hey, I'm a maths teacher) to the popular Perthshire town. After a quick stretch of the legs at Kirkmichael village, we traversed varied terrain of valley floors, narrow glens and desolate moorland. At one point I pulled over after we had spotted a group of partridge scuttling around. There are two types of this game bird in the UK - the native grey and the introduced red-legged. It was the latter we had encountered and I managed to grab a photo one sitting on the long grass before something startled them and they flew overhead. We had seen partridges in Galloway the previous year but otherwise our only previous sightings had been in the fridges and freezers of farm shops, or at market stalls. Eventually we descend from the high moorland into the tourist trap of Pitlochry - a place we know well. It was a popular holiday destination in the caravan during my childhood. The town was quiet due to the almost total lack of international tourists and we made a quick toilet stop before moving on. Normally we would have visited the excellent fish & chip shop on the High Street but we still had our packed lunches and we headed a little further down the A9 to the Hermitage woodland for a bite to eat and our final adventure of the day.

Situated near Dunkeld, the Hermitage is in the care of the National Trust and offers pleasant forest walks among giant Douglas fir trees - among the tallest in Britain. Originally 18th-century pleasure grounds for the Dukes of Atholl, the paths lead to spectacular waterfalls overlooked by Ossian's Hall, built in 1782 as the focal point of the designed landscape and a place to escape the pressures of everyday life. It must have been a tough existence for the landed gentry! Originally decorated with mirrors, giving the illusion of water pouring in all directions, the hall was partly blown up by gunpowder in 1869, probably as a protest against toll charges on the bridge at Dunkeld levied by the 7th Duke. By the early 20th century Ossian’s Hall was derelict and it wasn’t until 1951 that the National Trust salvaged and simplified the building. We took in the sight and sounds of the cascading Black Linn Falls from the small viewing platform high above the raging torrents. The Hermitage is right beside the A9 and a nice place to pause while on a long journey. We then drove home, noting the progress of the the massive engineering project to upgrade the road to dual carriageway from Perth to Inverness. A mix of familiar and new terrain today.