Day 1​​ –​​ Gently, gently

Wetherspoons are excellent at serving well prepared food and drink,but their hotels are a bit meh. ​​ The King’s Highway is a stone’s throw from the​​ railway​​ station and I booked in easily and was given a key card that opened doors on the way to the room as well. ​​ I suppose I should have asked or used my eyes but, after I’d lugged my panniers up three flights of stairs, I realised there was a lift. ​​ The receptionist didn’t tell me but said I could leave the bike in a passage on the ground floor: as there was a lift, it came into the room with me. The room was fine with an enormous bed but was in the attic: poor value for £125 a night but there wasn’t anything better close to the station. As it was burger night I dined on a smoky burger and a pint of Belhaven 80 shilling for​​ a total of​​ £9.99. Both were good and made up, to some extent, for the high room price.

Knowing I didn’t have far to go today it shouldn’t have been an early start, but roadworks started in the street at 0645 so that put an end to any sleep. ​​ I went downstairs and ate a £7.48 Scottish fry-up which I washed down with a cup of tea, packed everything and was outside and on my way by 0900. I was slightly concerned as to how the bike would handle as this was her first outing with loaded panniers and, indeed, the front end is light and skittish but once I got some speed up and got used to it all was well.​​ 

There’s a steepish hill out of Inverness and I blipped the motor to get up it​​ and made my way to the Culloden Road. Bike paths extend to the edge of the city, some shared with pedestrians, so I made good progress to the Culloden Battlefield site, about six miles from the city centre. Plenty of coaches and cars in the car park and a lot of American accents. I​​ hitched my steed to a railing –​​ rather​​ I used my hiplock to chain Lucy to a bike stand – and made my way to the visitor centre. ​​ 

There was an​​ exhibition for a payment to the National Trust for Scotland but I declined and went outside to look at the battlefield​​ on Drummossie moor. ​​ 

Now the battle of Culloden fought on 16 April 1746 in snow and rain is a strange beast. ​​ You would think that the Scots would be keen to forget that the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was given a hammering ​​ by the Government forces of George II commanded by his 25​​ year old son the Duke of Cumberland; but this wasn’t really a Scottish Nationalist fight. Charles Stuart was trying to gain the throne of England, Ireland and Scotland​​ for his father James (hence the Jacobite rebellion)​​ and there were probably more Scotsmen against as for him. ​​ This was an unwanted invasion of Scotland and​​ some​​ of Cumberland’s troops were pure-blooded Scots.​​ Anyway,​​ the site of this, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, has been well preserved and the lines of the armies as drawn up at the start of proceedings are marked on the flat moor by red and blue flags.​​ 

The Jacobites attacked and were repelled with large losses, thought to be 2000 killed or wounded - and in those days most would have died of their wounds - against 350 or so of Cumberland’s men. It was the final Stuart attempt to regain the throne and​​ the final verse of the British National Anthem makes reference

Lord grant that Marshal Wade*
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!

*Wade built many military roads in Scotland to move troops easily across the difficult terrain but was replaced as Commander by Cumberland in 1746.

I didn’t linger but moved east along roads with little traffic. ​​ I made my way down towards the sea at Ardersier, just past which is Fort George a working military post and small arms fire was rattling around me as I rode past.

​​ I passed through Nairn,​​ where the promised rain started in earnest, and crossed​​ over a wrought iron footbridge

I crossed the River Findhorn, the first of the great east coast salmon rivers that I shall cross, on an old railway bridge. ​​ There was a hopeful fisherman on the bank but​​ not testing the water.

On to Forres where the​​ rain​​ abated so I stopped and took a picture of the Benromach distillery, though how it describes itself as Speyside stretches credulity.

I passed Diageo’s Roseisle distillery and a large field of pigs that were, no doubt, benefitting from the brewery waste. The roads were flat and straight as I headed for Burghhead and a visit to the sea which I had been away from since Ardersier. There is a small port and a sandy beach which, no doubt, does good trade in the school holidays but was, today, almost deserted

With only 12 or so miles to go and rain, again, threatening, I pushed on to my destination, the Stotfield hotel in Lossiemouth. RAF Lossiemouth sent a couple of jets into the air as I passed,​​ and I noted the verdant golf courses unlike those in the south. ​​ The general greenness of the countryside is certainly a change from home.