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.
Bog Factor
Rough paths and tracks, can be muddy in parts. Livestock - both sheep and cattle - are usually present.
Parking area at Allanreid.
No public transport.
NJ236248
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 (walk no. 3), which is waymarked for much of the route as the Livet Path. Begin the walk by crossing the bridge and following the track to the right below the memorial cairn. Continue along the track to a junction, then turn right towards the wooden footbridge over the River Livet. Don't cross the bridge but instead bear left to follow the grassy track upstream.
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 burn and then bear right, heading for another wooden footbridge high over the Livet. Cross this bridge; there is a lonely cottage ahead with an outlook across the featureless moors.
Head to the left to pick up a track and continue up the glen, passing left of 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 easiest to turn right here and head uphill across the moor alongside the fence (on either side) rather than continuing on the track. 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.
Follow the fence up the boggy moorland until a gate where you turn right onto a track (marker post). Follow the track which runs roughly parallel to the route taken earlier up the glen; there are cairn markers at intervals along it amongst the heather, whilst the rolling Ladder Hills close the horizon to the left. Eventually a gate is reached - pass through and continue ahead, keeping to the left of the ruined house below.
After another gate (and stile), follow the track as it curves left and then right to cross a wooden bridge. Continue along the track passing through another gate, then along it for another 500m (ignoring a track off right) to reach another gate. Turn right on the far side, following a main track and ignoring a grassier route off right. After 150m turn right - just after a gate and fence corner - to head along a field edge towards a mast with a fence on your right. You are now heading towards the rounded hill of Bochel ahead; passing just to the right of a farmhouse, crossing a stile beside a gate and then another gate. The route keeps just left of another isolated house (Badievochal), then bends right just beyond it to regain a track.
Continue along the track diagonally down through the fields ahead, ignoring tracks off right and passing through several gates as the track heads to the farmhouse at Glack. Pass above this, then turn right along the far side of the farm to pass through a gate and gain the entrance track. Turn left down this 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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