We spotted a poster in our overnight lay-by advertising a mountain bike trail on the nearby Glenlivet estate. The drive there was twisty but very picturesque, through seemingly endless rolling hills covered in green fields, brown heather and dark pine forest. We arrived quite early and had a bowl of soup and a bacon roll in the lovely log cabin café, which was surprisingly busy considering it was halfway up a hill in the middle of nowhere.

We set off on the trail and for a while, were a little underwhelmed. After a long, gradual climb up to “Gauger’s lookout” there was some nice, flowing singletrack along part of the blue trail through “Spooky wood”, then some flat pedalling along a gravel track to join the red trail. Then came a very long uphill section along the “Forest road”, which gave us a chance to admire the majestic pines, firs and spruces that towered above us, growing thickly on either side. It felt like we were newcomers to their ancient forest domain.

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After what felt like a long time, we reached the top of the hill and the landscape opened out, spoiling us with views of rolling, sun-dappled moors, fields and rich green forests, with layers of hazy blue mountains in the distance. We stopped to run up to the viewpoint at the top of the hill, stare in awe at the vastness of everything around us, and get blown around by the wind.

The Cairngorms is a different kind of wilderness to the West Highlands, where we’d come from. Mountains roll lazily over and around each other in the distance, huge green fields hug hills where farmers have managed to tame patches of soil and brown, heather-covered moorlands stretch out to the edges of old forests where trees huddle secretively in huge, ancient communities. The rivers are wide and calm and the whole panorama gives the upland plateau a strange sense of three-dimensional enormousness, stretching both vertically and horizontally as if it was its own complete, self-contained world.

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Once I had satisfied my poetic inclinations with these observations, we remounted the bikes and set off on the downhill section of the red route. Our dubiousness of the Glenlivet MTB evaporated in an instant. The next few miles were an incredible mix of very (and sometimes very, very) quick, smooth singletrack which started down the side of the open, heathery hill, then zigzagged through an immense forest, punctuated all the way by black graded features – drop-offs, jumps and steps. It was probably the longest continuous downhill section both of us has ever ridden, and we flew down it feeling high as kites.

We swapped bikes for a little bit at one point and I was reluctantly sold on the smoothness and handling ability of Ryan’s new full suspension Giant, in contrast with my 2008 hardtail, but to its credit the old Rockhopper handled everything the trail threw at it (apart from the biggest jumps and drops, which I was too chicken and probably too inexperienced to try). Having said this, the brakes were very weak following the harrowing Torridon loop that we’d completed a couple of days previously.

After what felt like a blissful age of zipping through the trees, the gradient finally levelled out and we rejoined the gravel forest road back towards the car park. I was buzzing so much from the descent that I don’t remember much of the ride back, apart from that the trees were lovely and the moorland was lovely and that if it weren’t for the gargantuan climb and the fact that we wanted to explore some other places, we’d do that downhill section again in a heartbeat.

The last noteworthy bit of the trail was back in the forest near the car park, where there’s a 1km orange section consisting of wide, smooth, flowing, huge jumps and berms, which I rolled along (admittedly quite quickly) wishing that I’d learnt how to jump before I got there. Then we were back at the cabin café, where we did a celebratory couple of laps of the little pump track before loading the bikes onto the van and leaving, a little reluctantly, for Braemar.

Braemar is a village in the middle of the Cairngorms National Park, about an hour south from the Glenlivet MTB centre. The drive was very picturesque, through the heart of the landscapes I described above (am I getting lazy?), and some of the hills were so long and steep that we had to stop a couple of times to let the van’s engine cool down, poor old thing. We drove past the Balmoral Estate where I was delighted to see my first red squirrel of the trip, then instantaneously distraught as it ran across the road and got hit by a car. It was very sad, but so quick that it wouldn’t have felt a thing. I, on the other hand, was mildly traumatised.

I’d been to Braemar a couple of times before and I wanted Ryan to see it. It’s a timeless, picture-postcard old village with some kind of royal history, nestled in the heart of the Cairngorm hills and just big enough to have a bustling atmosphere. It has a handful of independent shops, a couple of pubs and hotels, a castle, a castle ruin and a Highland games centre.

We parked in the central car park and went for a wander. We found a really interesting shop called McLean of Braemar full of traditional Scottish gifts and homeware-type bits, like antler-handled knives, drinking horns, celtic jewellery and all sorts of tartan and tweed. After a good poke around we decided that being mid-afternoon, it was time for the pub. We tried The Flying Stag but it was full, so we ended up in Farquharsons Bar and Kitchen, a lovely pub on the river right by the car park.

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Covid restrictions meant that we had to sit down at a table and couldn’t end up chatting to locals at the bar, like we usually would. Nevertheless, the staff were very friendly, the cider was cold and the food was lovely. It was nice to be in a pub after a few days eating and drinking in the van, especially as lockdown had meant that we hadn’t had many pub-going opportunities all year.

We left the pub (reluctantly) and went off in search of a suitable overnight spot. We found an excellent, discrete place near a duck pond, just a few minutes out from the centre. It overlooked the village, which was tucked neatly in a bowl surrounded by high, heather-covered hills. We spent the evening relaxing with a few ciders, munching on van snacks and drunkenly expressing our appreciation of how lovely Scotland is. That night the sky was jet black and crystal clear, and the stars were breathtaking.

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