Scotland had been on my radar for some years. This all started by following Markus Stitz on Twitter. His photos of glorious trails and drovers roads, along with the ‘Freedom to Roam‘ gave me the BIG itch … I knew I had to scratch it!

I selected two routes to follow. Firstly, the Caledonian Way at 375 kms. Officially starting south in Campbeltown and finishing in Inverness. But due to the poor reliability of CalMac ferries, there was no ferry (still in dry-dock two months late) from Ardrossan. Hence, the next best option was over to the Isle of Arran, slightly further north.

From Inverness I joined the Eurovelo 1 down to Boat-of-Garten. Here I started my second route (anti-clockwise), The Cairngorms Outer Loop at 300 kms. And yes, there’s an inner loop, but I wasn’t sure how gnarly it would be deep in the Cairngorms and among the famous Munro’s. So I opted for the route that had a mixture of everything.