Thanks for your input guys. Agree the Strathconnon option looks good but it would add a lot of road miles to my trip, so I'll probably opt for the usual route. Thinking of biking in to avoid the gate issue and will probably make the decision on the day as to the exact route I take. Might be as much to do with the weather as anything else.
BTW I have honed to perfection my pathless bog-trotting and tussock-hopping completing the Welsh tops and can recommend Wales as an excellent, if often profoundly wet, training ground for this perverse activity.