Since setting up
Angels’ Nectar three years ago, it’s been pretty hectic. A six day week has
become the norm rather than the exception. But thanks to my Mother in Law
offering to baby sit for twenty-four hours, we had an opportunity for a well-earned
day off. What to do? Head to the hills and bag a Munro? Sailing on Loch
Morlich, canoe trip, or mountain bike adventure in the nearby woods?
We decided to head back
on to the River Spey in our canoe. Since the arrival of our oldest daughter
five years ago, canoe trips have been restricted to the flat waters of local
Lochs. A canoe trip with just the two of us would be an opportunity to venture
back onto moving water, but to ease us back in gently we choose the relatively
gentle section of the River Spey from Aviemore to Boat of Garten.
We launched
at the Old Bridge Inn, a lovely pub which also formed the clue for one of the
locations of our Angels’ Nectar Whisky Caches in the whisky treasure hunt we
hosted for the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival: ‘Its not at the Old Bridge
Inn, its in the old bridge’.
We headed downstream
with some gentle rapids to keep us on our toes. The river meandered, getting
ever so slightly grander with each stream that joined. Whilst only a couple of
miles from the bustling main street of Aviemore, with a bit of imagination we
could have been in the Yukon. The river is incredibly peaceful here, but
intriguingly has an industrial past. In the days before steel, timber used to
be floated downstream in rafts from the forests to our right, to the shipyards
on the coast. We saw oystercatchers, sand martins, an osprey, and a fancy duck,
which was beyond our bird knowledge. We passed fishermen, asked if they had had
any luck, to which the cheery response was ‘Yes, lots of luck, but no
fish’. To our right we could see
the Cairngorms, complete with some remaining patches of snow in late May. My
wife exclaimed ‘Scotland’s an amazing country’.
River canoe trips
always lead to logistical challenges. The nature of the beast is you can’t
canoe back to where you parked the car. So there is the need for what’s called ‘portage’.
Hence on our way to Aviemore we’d left our bikes in Boat of Garten. So we now
left the canoe by the bridge and set of on our bikes to retrieve the car. We
cycled back to Aviemore along the Speyside Way, a section which winds across a
heather moor and through ancient woodland, adjacent to the Strathspey Steam Railway.
It struck me that the railway are missing a trick, they could offer a canoe
portage service between Boat of Garten and Aviemore for the likes of us.
For an après adventure
treat we headed to Andersons Restaurant in Boat of Garten. In the pre-digital
world I thought there was an opportunity for a restaurant guide based purely on
the bread. In a similar vain, I think you could write a restaurant guide purely
on how restaurants respond to (when booking), ‘Just to warn you my wife is
currently dairy, egg and soya free’. Given the welcome we received, and the
manner in which our current dietary requirements were handled, Andersons would get
top marks.
After baffling the
waiter with our order of ginger beer to go with the Angels’ Nectar (we were thirsty,
do try it!), I indulged on their fantastic Cairngorm Venison pie, just what I
needed after all that paddling. Their Black Treacle Ice Cream was not on, but
their Kalamansi (that’s a fruit not a liqueur) sorbet made for a refreshing sub.
After a few more drams
to celebrate staying in the canoe, it was time for a taxi ride back to reality.
