Day 12 – Thursday 2 August

Pitlochry to Aviemore

Blair Athol Castle (where I crashed!)

Ruthven Barracks, Kingussie

There is a long story from here, but initially the idea was to stop at Boat of Garten, just north of Aviemore, but the camp site there no longer accepts tents, so I have re-routed to a camp site at Aviemore, a distance of 57 miles; not so bad really.

However, I had a crash! On the map I have superimposed an exclamation mark. That is Blair Athol, and as I cycled along the road ahead if Mick I glimpsed the imposing white front of Blair Athol Castle, and shouted back to Mick, “Oh! we must have a look at that.”

The confusing thing is, now that I look at a map, it’s not possible to see the castle from the road, it’s several hundred yards up a driveway and round a corner at the top. So what I saw I don’t know.

Anyway, I attempted a bunny-hop onto the pavement in front of a church but my front wheel hit the curb and I fell onto my left shoulder, wrenching it behind me. I disentangled myself from the bike and sat up, thinking, “Ouch! that doesn’t look good, I’d better pull my shoulder straight before it starts hurting”. I grabbed my left forearm and pulled it round to the front, my shoulder grinding as I did so. My next memory is of Revd. Duncan (a local minister) getting me to my feet, putting me in his car and driving me to a local medical centre at Pitlochry. They couldn’t help because they had no x-ray equipment so Revd. Duncan drove me to Perth hospital and left me there, taking Mick back to Blair Athol.

In the meantime a policeman had found Liz and the boys parked at the intended lunch stop and told them I had injured my shoulder and that they should meet up with Mick at Blair Athol post office. They got there just as Revd. Duncan and Mick returned from Perth and they all had tea and biscuits in the minister’s garden. Liz put my bike in the van and Mick set off to ride to a bed and breakfast near Boat of Garten, that Liz found in a guide to the Spey Valley she had in the van.

At Perth they x-rayed my shoulder and then I was taken by ambulance to an orthopedic hospital in Bridge of Earn with a motor cyclist who had broken his knee. There the consultant surgeon decided not operate on the basis that I was “quite a fit sportsman” and the shoulder would tighten up naturally and the bones would knit together in the fullness of time. His diagnosis was “a multiple fracture of the proximal humerus”.

Monday 27 May 1991

After breakfast in our B&B in Pitlochry Liz and I made our separate ways to Blair Athol where we looked up Revd. Duncan to thank him again for rescuing me, and then carried to Dalwhinnie where we met up for lunch. In the afternoon I came across Ruthven Barracks near Kingussie and stopped to have a look. Built in the early 1700s as a Red Coat cavalry barracks it was destroyed by the retreating Scottish forces after their defeat at Culloden. I carried on along the B970, past Aviemore and up to Boat of Garten where I turned left to cross the River Spey into the village. Immediately after the bridge I spotted Liz outside our B&B that turned out to be splendid. Elizabeth the proprietress was a cordon blue cook and fed us royally on smoked salmon garnished with lime and cucumber served with wholemeal bread rolls, stirfried beef and vegetables with noodles, followed by a chocolate fudge cake to die for, coffee and after-dinner mints. All her guests sat round a circular dining table and talked about why they were there: mostly bird watching in the nearby Cairngorms.