A fairly level circuit that nonetheless takes in some very bleak and wild moorlands around the upper reaches of the river Livet. The route has been waymarked by Glenlivet estate. Look out for grouse, curlews and lapwings.
Summary
Paths, tracks and minor roads, can be very muddy in parts.
Terrain
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1. There is a parking area at Allanreid at the end of a minor road from near Tomnavoulin. A large information board gives details of the route, which is waymarked as 'Walk 3'. Begin the walk by crossing the bridge and following the track to the right below the memorial cairn. At the waymarker post, bear right off the track towards the footbridge. Don't cross the bridge but instead follow the grassy track upstream.
2. Continue upstream beside the River Livet until the track bears left and passes through a small plantation. Go through the gate at the far end of the plantation and then continue ahead through the initially pathless field, keeping the fence on your left. Continue on a track through another gate, joining another muddy track which comes in from the left. Cross the small stream and then bear right, heading for the wooden footbridge over the Livet. Cross this bridge; there is a lonely cottage ahead with an outlook across the featureless moors.
3. Head to the left to pick up a track and continue up the glen, passing below the cottage. This an empty landscape with a great feeling of space. Follow the track for about a kilometre and a half until reaching a gate and stile with a Glenlivet waymarker post. It is important to turn right here and head uphill across the moor beside the fence; the waymarked route continuing along the track is a mountain bike route. You have now joined the Malcolm Gillespie Smuggler's Route. Malcolm Gillespie was an exciseman in the 1820s and was the most feared and respected by the outlaw whisky smuggling community. He was wounded in the course of his work no less than 42 times and his body was covered with the scars to prove it; this wild area had been a safe haven for the smugglers until Malcolm's time.
4. Follow the fence up the boggy moorland until a marker indicates where to turn right onto a track. Follow the track which runs roughly parallel to the route taken earlier up the glen; there are cairn markers at intervals along it, whilst the rolling Ladder Hills close the horizon to the left. The track deteriorates and becomes boggy before reaching a stile; cross this and pass to the left of the ruined house below.
5. Go through the gap in the fence and follow the muddy track to the next gate. Follow the markers to the right as the track continues now to the left of the fence and reaches another gate. Again continue ahead in the next field, but when the field narrows turn right, not passing through the gate but instead walking alongside the fence to its left. You are now heading towards the rounded hill of Bochel ahead; passing just to the right of two farmhouses. After passing the second of these go over the stile at the end of the field rather than the gate. The Bochel circuit (Walk no. 10) now joins in from the left. Continue ahead on the path across the rough grassland with some good views over to the right.
6. Beside another gate leave the Bochel route and pass over the stile and then diagonally down through the field ahead, heading just to the left of the farmhouse and over another stile. Join the track from the farmhouse which winds down to the footbridge passed near the start of the walk. Cross the bridge to rejoin the outward route, joining the track ahead and following it to the left to return to the start.
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