Exploring the Cairngorms with Macdonald Resorts

I think the Cairngorms are my all time favourite place to go on holiday. The landscape is, to massively understate things, beautiful. There is so much choice in terms of walking and outdoor activities that we often can’t bring ourselves to choose, and simply pick a random walk we’ve never done before. It’s somewhere I know I will always want to come back to. When Macdonald Resorts got in touch to offer us a gifted stay at one of their self-catering resorts, I knew that we’d choose their Lochanhully resort near Carrbridge as soon as I saw it on their website.

We used the stay as an opportunity to break up the very long drive back from a trip to Assynt. If you’re looking for a sneaky way to add a few extra days on to your holiday, this is definitely the way to do it! Handily situated close to the A9 but at the same time very quiet and peaceful, Lochanhully is in the perfect location to stop off for a few nights if you’re heading north or south.

Check-in was from 5pm, so with a drive of only two and a half hours from Kylesku we stopped off to do the easy walk around the loch at Loch An Eilein. Part of the Rothiemurchus estate, this is one of the most famous walks in the Cairngorms, but we’d never been able to squeeze it in during our previous visits. I was delighted with the opportunity to rectify this and we drove straight to the estate managed car park at the edge of the loch – there is a charge of £1.50 per adult in the car. The loch is beautiful, with mountains rising up as a backdrop to the water, and it’s also a good place to watch out for ospreys in the summer months.

A circuit of the loch is 3 miles of easy, flat walking on an excellent track. With this in mind I expected to see a constant stream of people but I was pleasantly surprised to find it pretty quiet – while we saw other walkers and cyclists, it was by no means busy. It’s possible to extend the walk with a circuit of neighbouring Loch Gamha, but being a bit tired from the drive and eager to check-in we stuck to the main circuit.

From Loch an Eilein it was a short 20 minute drive to Lochanhully, which is located on the outskirts of the pretty village of Carrbridge (home of the very popular (and dog friendly) Landmark Forest Adventure Park)). We arrived half an hour before our check-in time, but the reception staff could not have been more welcoming, providing us with our keys, directions to our lodge and a map of the site and its facilities, which include a sauna, swimming pool, tennis court and bar. The receptionist explained that the bar is manned by reception staff and therefore only open during reception hours, but that it was dog friendly and we were welcome to bring the dogs, which is always appreciated.

From reception, it was back past the tennis courts to reach our lodge. We stayed in a two bedroom superior woodland cabin, and it was a great base for the weekend. The open plan living room/dining room/kitchen was enormous (certified by Coal, who did a few laps of Labrador zoomies on arrival and for the first time ever didn’t run into any furniture), and well equipped with an oven, hob, microwave and even an air fryer, which was a first for me! The was one double bedroom and one twin, both done up tastefully with warm colours. I especially loved the floor to ceiling windows in the living room which open onto some decking: there was a view down over the loch and every 20 minutes or so a duck would waddle past with a host of ducklings in tow. Lochanhully currently have 20% off stays up to the end of September 2023, so if you’re thinking about booking a break in the Cairngorms, it’s definitely worth having a look on their website to see if there are any dates available which suit you.

Our plans to head out into the hills the next day were scuppered by the Scottish weather – I believe the most appropriate phrase to describe it would be ‘good weather for ducks’. It certainly didn’t seem to deter the flock who were happily waddling to and fro past our window! While the weather meant we weren’t bagging any Munros, there were plenty of alternatives available to choose from. As well as the Landmark adventure park, the Strathspey railway is another family and dog friendly attraction close to Lochanhully, or you might want to head into Aviemore to have a wander around the shops – it’s an outdoor lover’s shopping paradise and many of the shops are dog friendly.

While it was a bit foggy and drizzly, the rain wasn’t torrential, so we made the best of it and headed out to do some short low level walks which we could retreat from quickly if the weather turned. Our first stop of the day was the Frank Bryce sculpture trail near Feshiebridge. This way-marked sculpture trail is a short, easy walk which can be completed in less than an hour, with a collection of sculptures scattered along the trail for you to enjoy.

We spent an hour or so exploring the trail, which winds its way through a lovely little woodland before visiting the ruins of a walled garden, eventually returning to the start after a sejour along the river Feshie. With plenty of daylight left to us and the rain still not setting in, we ventured a little further south the the RSPB nature reserve at the Insh Marshes.

The marshes here are nationally significant, the largest area of unaltered and undrained wetland in Britain. We parked in the small parking area close to the lookout hide and picked up the Invertwomie trail, another easy walk (although not brilliantly way marked) which is mostly flat, which heads away from the parking area to pass through light woodland and grassy riverside meadows. Dogs on leads are welcome at the site and there are three hides you can access which look out over the marshes – keep your eyes peeled for hen harriers who can be found nesting here.

Not long after we got back to the car it started to rain in earnest, so we returned to Lochanhully for a cosy afternoon of TV and hot chocolates. The dogs were more than happy to just chill out in the living room with us after all of the sniffs, and we had a stroll along the lochan in the early evening when the rain eased off. I have to say I have never seen quite so many ducklings in one go before!

All too soon it was Monday morning and we were packing up the car to head home. The sun finally made an appearance (better late than never) so we managed to squeeze in a quick walk on our way home. The Uath Lochans are only a 25 minute drive from Lochanhully and offer two short way-marked forestry trails: we’d visited previously as part of a longer walk starting from Glen Feshie, and the views from Farleitter Crag were so good that I wanted to come back and see them again. The Farleitter Crag trail is the longer of the two trails available from the car park and took us about an hour an a half, with a fairly lengthy stop in the middle to admire the view over the lochans.

Dog friendly rating – 4.5/5. Lochanhully is a great base to explore the Cairngorms with your dog: the lodge was spacious, the woodland setting was perfect for sniffs and toilet breaks, and the onsite bar is dog friendly too! I know that some people prefer to have enclosed gardens which Lochanhully does not have, but this is a tiny detail and I wouldn’t let this put you off staying here with your pooch. There are plenty of walks right from your doorstep, so use it as a reason to get outside!

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