Speyside Way

Two halves that have almost nothing in common. From Buckie the Way runs west on promenade and shore path to Portgordon, the only genuinely exposed walking on the whole trail, then turns inland onto old railway trackbed where the ballast is coarse enough to be felt through a boot, and into a narrow twisting woodland path on bark and sand to Spey Bay. At the shingle bar of the river mouth it swings south and stays with the Spey on riverside and forest tracks into Fochabers, close, low and enclosed. After Fochabers the character changes completely: roughly 10 km of quiet tarred minor road above the east bank, rolling up to about 150 m and back down, with no services at all on it, before the drop to the Spey crossing at Boat o' Brig and the start of the climb into Ben Aigan Forest. The section ends part-way up that climb. Rothes, which names the far end, lies over the hill and is not on the route.

Logistics: The viaduct linking the Way to Garmouth over the Spey has been closed since December 2025 with structural damage and the notice says it will stay shut for the foreseeable future. The Way itself is unaffected, but the nearest crossing is about 3 miles upstream at Fochabers, so a bed booked in Garmouth or Kingston cannot be reached from the trail at Spey Bay.

Navigation: Waymarked throughout with the thistle of Scotland's Great Trails and easy to hold. Two places have a signed alternative worth knowing about rather than a navigation problem: the embankment top at the Birks, which is squeezed between the B9104 and the river and can be bypassed on the road, and the flight of steps at Boat o' Brig, bypassed by following the B9103 for 150 m to the east and taking the first track on the right. The steps leaving Fochabers can also be avoided on the road.

The ascent figure is misleading. Almost all of it is in the first two kilometres and the last three, and the 20 km between is dead level. It opens on the forested shoulder of Ben Aigan at about 290 m, the best open view of the northern half, looking north down the Spey valley, then descends through the beech woods of Arndilly, crosses the Fiddich and reaches Craigellachie and its Telford bridge. From there the Way becomes the trackbed of the old Great North of Scotland Railway and stays on it: firm, well drained and fast, hard-surfaced from Carron to Cragganmore since 2021, through Aberlour, over the Spey at Bridge of Carron, past Knockando and Blacksboat and back over the river on the Ballindalloch viaduct. Distilleries and villages arrive at convenient intervals and the walking asks nothing of you, which some find restful and some find monotonous over four hours. A little over a mile past Ballindalloch the trackbed ends, the Way climbs into the Woods of Knockfrink, and the ground turns rough. Rothes lies about 1.4 km off the line on the Ben Aigan descent and the trail does not enter it.

Logistics: Ben Aigan Forest has been closed outright for a weekend in late April in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025 for the Speyside Stages car rally, with the notices stating there is no alternative diversion in place. If you are walking in late April, check the route managers' news page before committing to the day.

Navigation: Unmistakable once you are on the trackbed. The one junction that matters is at Ballindalloch former station, where the waymarked Tomintoul spur branches away from the main line to Grantown; both are signed Speyside Way, so read the destination and not just the thistle. Note also that Ballindalloch village and its shop are off the route on the A95, not at the station.

The roughest, slowest and least forgiving part of the trail, and the route managers and the trail association both say so. From the high ground of the Woods of Knockfrink the Way rolls through forest and farmland above the Spey on rutted, often wet tracks, crossing into the Cairngorms National Park near Mains of Dalvey. Two burns are crossed on stepping stones. What actually governs the pace, though, is neither the gradient nor the mud but the ironmongery: a long succession of narrow squeeze stiles and chain gates that stop you every few hundred metres, with stretches of refuge fencing alongside fields because cattle are likely here. Do not plan this at your usual rate. Around Pollowick above Cromdale the ground flattens and improves, the Way drops to cross the Spey at Cromdale, and the last stretch through the Scots pines of Anagach Woods to Grantown and the old station at Grantown East is level and easy. Advie and Dulnain Bridge, which name the two ends, are both off the route.

Logistics: There is no settlement and no service between Ballindalloch and Cromdale. Timber harvesting at Tom an Uird has run across the summer in past years with on-site controls rather than a formal diversion, so the line through the forest there may not be the one on your map.

Navigation: This is where people go wrong on the Speyside Way. The farmland and forest between Ballindalloch and Cromdale is a sequence of fenced lanes, field edges and partly overgrown tumbledown walls where the line is not obvious, and one walker's account of the full route puts the only wrong turn of their week here. The other place to slow down is Anagach Woods, where a dense local path network crosses the trail and the biggest track is not always the Way. Grantown town centre is signposted off the route at the information boards on the corner of the woods by the golf course, so a walker who wants the town has to take that turn deliberately.

The easiest walking on the trail and the point at which the route stops being about the Spey gorge and becomes about pine forest. Old Speyside railway trackbed with a mostly grassy surface runs through riverside farmland with the Cairngorms filling the view ahead, then the Way comes into Nethy Bridge through the old station yard and along the middle of the village. Beyond it the surface changes to built path and forest road through the Scots pine of Abernethy National Nature Reserve, with boardwalk laid over the wet ground near the southern end and one short steep pull on a good surface, before crossing the Spey into Boat of Garten. There is effectively no climbing and no navigation. Two narrow pinch points, behind the Spey Valley Smokehouse and by Balliefurth Farm, and a run of self-closing gates to work through, are all that interrupts it. Dulnain Bridge, which names the start, is about 2 km off the line and the Way does not visit it.

Logistics: Wildfire, late July 2026, and worth two minutes before you set out. The Cairngorms National Park Authority has closed paths under section 15 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 for a wildfire at Glenmore and Strath Nethy: all paths around Loch Morlich, Glenmore and Badaguish, the Ryvoan pass, and Abernethy Forest south of Forest Lodge towards Ryvoan bothy. Its latest update on the page we read was timed at 29 July. None of that closed ground is on the Way. The Abernethy crossing between Nethy Bridge and Boat of Garten runs well north and west of Forest Lodge, and the authority's own notice points visitors at this route as one that is open, "either north to Boat of Garten or south to Kincraig" from Aviemore and "through the pine forest to reach Boat of Garten" from Nethy Bridge. The managing authorities' route news carries no post about it at all. What can still reach you is smoke, which the authority says can be a hazard a significant distance from the incident. This is an instance and not a pattern: read the park authority's access page and the Speyside Way route news on the week you walk, and expect this note to be out of date before the descriptions around it are.

Navigation: Nothing difficult. Trackbed, village street and reserve paths in sequence, all obvious. The gates are self-closing bridleway type rather than stiles and should be left as found. Anyone aiming for a bed in Dulnain Bridge needs to leave the trail deliberately, it is about 2 km off the line and not signposted as part of the route.

The flattest section and by some distance the busiest. It begins on minor road and the Kinchurdy farm and estate track across the open heather of Granish Moor, with the Cairngorms across the strath and almost nobody about, then joins a Sustrans cycle route and the Aviemore orbital footpath and drops straight into the middle of Aviemore. Aviemore is the only real town on the line, a resort with a main line station, and after five days of trackbed and forest it is a jolt. South of it the Way shadows the railway on new multi-user path, roadside path and short lengths of minor road through open birch woodland and grassland, then climbs above the river at Speybank for the run into Kincraig. The walking is undemanding start to finish; what makes the section interesting is how fast it goes from empty moor to retail park and back to birchwood.

Navigation: Easy throughout. The one spot the route managers single out is the awkward passage under the railway bridges on the Aviemore orbital footpath, which includes a step. Part of the section is shared with Sustrans National Route 7, so cycle waymarks and trail waymarks both appear and it is worth reading which is which before following one out of Boat of Garten.

The quietest part of the southern half, with the best of the trail's forest walking in the middle and a poor finish. Past Loch Insh and Feshiebridge the Way makes the one real climb south of Ben Aigan, a forestry road up through Inshriach Forest to the Uath Lochans at about 340 m, which is the highest ground on the whole route. Gravel tracks and forest road then roll on through pine and birch above Insh Marshes, a thousand hectares of floodplain between Kingussie and Kincraig and one of the largest inland wetlands in Britain, past Insh and Drumguish to Bridge of Tromie. From there the last 9 km are almost flat: past Ruthven Barracks, into Kingussie, then out along the cycleway beside the A86 to Newtonmore. That final stretch is tarmac beside a trunk road and is a functional way of finishing rather than a good one. Most walkers split this section, and the ground supports doing it at Kincraig or Kingussie rather than anywhere in the forest.

Logistics: Long for one day at 24 km with the route's biggest southern climb in the first half. Kingussie at km 135 is on the line and on the railway, so it is the natural place to stop short if the forest has taken longer than planned.

Navigation: The waymarking changes character at the end. Through the forest it is the usual thistle posts, but past Kingussie the route runs on shared cycleway and the signs become horizontal green boards counting down distances to the next town, which one walker found so repetitive they stopped reading them. Inshriach Forest is a working forest with a network of forestry roads and local waymarked trails around Uath Lochans, so follow the trail waymarks rather than the widest track.