Around Newtonmore

Willie Shand enjoys glorious views as he walks the Wildcat Trail.

Factfile

Ruthven Barracks was built on its prominent glacial mound by the government of George II following the 1715 Jacobite Rising, to keep a tighter control of the Highlands.

The River Spey rises high in the hills south of Fort Augustus and flows 107 miles on its course to the Moray Firth. It’s the fastest flowing river in Scotland and part of the Wildcat Trail runs close to its banks.

Called the “Highland tiger”, the beautiful Scottish wildcat is now very rarely seen. They’ve been hunted almost to the point of extinction. Although they are now protected by law, crossbreeding with other cats is an equally serious threat to their survival.

Within a glass case in the Macpherson Museum in Newtonmore are the remains of James Macpherson’s fiddle. James played this fiddle on his way to the gallows tree. There he broke it in two so that no other hand would play it once he was gone.

MOST of central Scotland never saw a blink of sunshine today, being smothered in a thick, unshiftable blanket of fog.

I must admit, having driven nearly two hours in it, I was beginning to wonder if my hopes of catching some of the autumn colours were a bit optimistic.

Then, surprisingly, just north of Dalwhinnie, you could virtually have drawn a line across the road where the fog ended and blue skies with wall to wall sunshine began.

That line hardly shifted all day, and when I went home again at night, the fog was just as thick. Of course, no-one believed me when I told them what a great day I’d had.

Anyway, this is how my day was to turn out when I left the A9 at Newtonmore and took myself for a walk round the Wildcat Trail.

Many of my favourite walks fall within the Cairngorms National Park, but for the best mix of mountain, moor, river, loch and woodland scenery, the eight-mile-long Wildcat Trail must come pretty near the top.