The drive up and the SYHA (27th Dec '09)

The drive up was long to say the least. I'd sensibly packed the car up the night before and got some fuel. I started at 0800 and pretty much just drove through till I met Andy. Picked him up and all his kit, wolfed down a sandwich his mother kindly made me and then headed off again. We had a pretty much easy drive up with very little traffic. I think we lost an hour because the A9 had been closed because of the snow, but we managed it fine. I was dog tired though. Getting the car into the car park was a laugh as we had to push this other families in first. I think we then went for a trip to tescos so we had some food and packed out sacks up for the morning.

The SYHA where we were staying we awesome. Its situated just outside the main centre of Aviemore, meaning you have a 5 minute walk and your in the centre of town. The hostel itself has a massive kitchen and dining, great drying room (which we definatly got our monies worth out of) a couple of commen rooms/seating areas. There was apparently 100 people staying in the hostel so I expected it to be really busy, especially at meal times. It wasn't, there was always enough space to cook, eat and relax. They also didn't mind us getting up at 0530 each day as long as we didn't wake anyone. The showers where like being blasted with boiling water, not a bad thing if you're suffering from an aching bad back!

As accomdation goes this was awesome.