JOGLE Day 3 thankfully began without any mishaps. The Morangie Hotel is a place which evokes former glory days but retains a certain charm.

Leaving Tain we were quickly picked up NCN Route 1 again and followed the forest lanes towards Lamington.

From here we headed towards Evanton.

And then on to Ardullie. We then decided to change our original plan and stay in the hills and head for Dingwall. Doing this enabled us to look over Cromarty Bay.

We stopped for our morning break at a fab little cafe in Dingwall which Nic and Sarah had found for us. Neil decided upon a chocolate drink with a difference – it had cinnamon and chilli in it.

We continued on NCN 1 and made our way towards Inverness.

This briefly meant following the A9.

Over the Kessock Bridge.

The support team, Sarah and Nic in the meantime made their way to Inverness via the Beauly Firth.

Where we met up with Nic and Sarah again for lunch at the Velocity Cafe.

Refreshed we now picked up NCN Route 7 as the climbing ramped up. We were now making our way towards the Cairngorms

There were one or two sharp climbs.

We next stopped near Tomatin. By now we were quite tired and our support team provided us with some welcome sandwiches and a hot drink.

Findhorn Bridge was an interesting structure.

Eventually we reached the high point of today’s climb, Slochd Summit on the A9.

Then it was downhill through Carrbridge.

And on to Aviemore.

Tonight we are staying at Aviemore SYHA with Cairngorm mountains in the background.

We had cycled 72 miles and climbed almost 3700 feet.

You can view our JOGLE Day 3 route from Tain to Aviemore below:

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/jogleday3-taintoaviemore.gpx”]

Tomorrow is an easier day as we move on to Pitlochary