I woke up early to be ready for breakfast at 8:30. After looking at the map to plot my route fro the day, I realized that it included a lot of driving on top of the rest of my plans. I had wanted to start the day with a tour of the Dewar’s distillery here in Aberfeldy for one and a half hours. Then I had planned a five-hour hike about halfway between Aberfeldy and Aberdeen where I would spend the night.
I decided to skip the Dewar’s tour and just stop by and look around the gift shop. I figured that this would be a good tradeoff. I was considering a hike on Wednesday in addition to visiting whiskey distilleries in the region near the Malt Whiskey Trail. Instead, I would spend today focused on hiking and all day Wednesday would be devoted to touring whiskey distilleries. This would certainly make up for missing this one.
In fact, I learned a bit about Dewar’s just from looking around the gift shop. They had a collection of five single malts, each from a separated distillery, named after the town in which it was from. I decided just to get a bottle from their Aberfeldy distillery for several reasons: I was visiting the Aberfeldy distillery, I had stayed over there, and Gram had recommended the town because she and Grampy had enjoyed it very much. I also picked out a book on Scotch Whiskey, with some beautiful pictures of the region. I later drove by another one of their distilleries farther north, but I didn’t bother to stop at that one.
After driving for about an hour and a half, I arrived at the base of Cairn Gorm around noon. From the parking area there was a train going up to the lodge near the summit, but I preferred to walk anyway. I noticed that they had a rule in place to control the foot traffic on the mountain. People who rode the train up were not allowed to leave the lodge building. Only those who walked up could go out and walk around and proceed to the top.
I followed the instructions in my book and headed back down the road a bit from the parking lot. After about 15 minutes I found the small, inconspicuous trail on the other side of a storm drain on the side of the road. I later found out that there was a much more prominent path leading directly from the parking lot, but I was happy to have found the more remote route.
I reached the lodge near the summit at 2:00 and stopped for lunch. I pulled out the sandwich, which I had bought at a roadside café earlier in the day. It was very windy so I found a picnic table behind the lodge, which blocked the wind a bit. After I finished eating I went inside briefly, which required ringing a bell and then signing in the walker’s book. I restocked my water there and then continued on my way to the top.
By chance, a couple left the lodge heading toward the summit just moments after I did. As we approached the summit, they caught up to me and I overheard them speaking in French. I made a brief comment to them in French and that started up a conversation. As I later found out, their names were Gaële and Robin. We continued to walk together and talk, and since they had the same route planned, we remained together for nearly the entire trip. We were separated briefly because they stopped to talk to a group of people they had previously met and I didn’t want to stop for fear of being invasive, but I proceeded to walk slowly so they eventually caught up. We spoke almost exclusively in French the entire time, even thought Gaële is an English teacher and could clearly speak English well. Robin is also a teacher and they are both originally from Brittany, although they currently live in the Paris suburb St. Germain en Laye. By the end of the trip we even started talking a bit about politics. When we reached the parking lot we parted ways after exchanging phone numbers. It was about 5:30 already so I quickly headed toward Aberdeen.
After an hour on the road I called my hotel and told the receptionist that I would be arriving a bit late. She said that it was not a problem, but that they only served dinner until 8:45. Luckily I arrived at 8:00, giving me time to shower before dinner. I ate an Aberdeen Angus fillet steak, which was very good, but it came in a small portion and was rather small. After I finished eating, I asked the bartender if he could recommend a whiskey and he brought me a Balvenie Doublewood. I later found out that this is a sister distillery to Glenfiddich, which is the most popular Scotch whiskey distillery worldwide.
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