Independent trail guide

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.