For the first three weeks of walking after we moved into town, I didn’t repeat a single route. It is fab, walking through Altyre Estate from my door every day, I love it. This is one of the six mile routes that I do.
I set off down the back lane before crossing the Grantown Road and walking through woodland, passed the quarry and then crossing a minor road and onto the estate.
Setting off on the quiet back lane
It briefly opens out on one side to farmland
Views over to Mundole
The avenue of trees leading to the Grantown Road
Looking north along the road to Forres
This little track looks like nothing
I wander along woodland tracks, around Loch of Blairs and then onto estate roads, passing Altyre church and the Big House. There are some incredible buildings which have been disused and falling into disrepair for quite some time, but it’s good to see there’s a project now to rebuild them and bring them back into use. After passing them, I walk by The Lake and along another estate road behind Garden’s Cottages before joining one of the main estate roads that leaves the estate and heads for Rafford. It passes the osprey nest site, the remains of the old church and the Cross Slab (Ogham).
Fairyhills Wood quarry
Pleasant track alongside the quarry
Borlete
From little acorns…
Chanterelle
The minor road
Baby mushroom in front of a decaying stump
Woodland track
View across the fields to the Big House
Loch of Blairs
Lovely woodland
Across the loch
Pretty mushroom
Another stump
Oyster mushrooms
Light through the leaves
Decomposing fungi
Leaving the woodland tracks to gain the main estate road
Through the trees to Altyre House and Altyre Church
Heather
Soon to be magnificent again
Altyre House
I often take this track to go behind the house, but not today
Across The Lake
Field of golden crops
Bridge on The Lake
Twisted tree
Another avenue of trees
The estate is full of amazing trees, this one is huge
This bridge looks okay, but I’ve seen the foundations…
At the junction, I take a track that was once a main road out of the estate, but now is almost unused and is quite overgrown and moss covered. Before the East Lodge, the track heads over the bank and drops me neatly onto the Rafford road, just by the Dallas Dhu Distillery. I pick up a Core Path here that takes the quiet country lane just passed Manachie Farm and I head back to the quiet back lane I headed out on.
Old main estate road
Golden grasses
This tree has a story to tell
No one at home today
Cross Slab (Ogham)
Once more onto woodland tracks
Wood stack
A less used track
Another dodgy bridge
Becoming mossy and overgrown
Beechnut
Over the bank…
…down to the road…
…just by the distillery
Looking towards Califer Hill
Picking up the Core Path
Another quiet lane
Back to the first quiet lane
The last of the green leaves
Approximately 6 miles and 390 ft total ascent.