The Speyside Way ( Doric: '; ) is a long-distance path in the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...

. The route begins in

Buckie Buckie () is a burgh town (defined as such in List of burghs in Scotland, 1888) on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland. Counties of Scotland, Historically in Banffshire, Buckie was the largest town in the county until the administrative area was ...

and ends at

Newtonmore Newtonmore ( ) is a village of approximately 1100 inhabitants in Badenoch, within the Highland (council area), Highland council area of Scotland. The village is only a few miles from a location that is claimed to be the exact geographical centre ...

, away. There is an optional spur leading off the main route to Tomintoul, adding and of ascent. The route primarily follows the River Spey through the scenery of

Banffshire Banffshire (; ; ) is a historic county in Scotland. The county town is Banff, although the largest settlement is Buckie to the west. The historic county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975. Since 1996 the area has been spli ...

, Morayshire and Inverness-shire in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, passing some of the distilleries that produce Speyside single malts. The first section from

to Spey Bay follows the coastline, while the final section from Aviemore to

follows most of the route of the former Strathspey Railway. It is listed as one of Scotland's Great Trails by

NatureScot NatureScot () is an Scottish public bodies#Executive NDPBs, executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government responsible for Scotland’s natural heritage, especially its nature, natural, genetics, genetic and scenic diversity. ...

, and links directly to two further Great Trails: the Dava Way and the Moray Coast Trail. About 52,750 people use the path every year, of whom about 2,750 complete the entire route. As with the other Great Trails, the Way is waymarked with a symbol showing a

thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterized by leaves with sharp spikes on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves. T ...

in a

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is de ...

. The Way was opened in 1981, from Spey Bay to Ballindalloch, and was extended over the years to reach Aviemore by 2000. In 2020 the final extension to

was completed. In 2021 the route's official website was modernised and its former bootprint logo replaced by a green-blue circle enclosing a stylised distillery and salmon. Since 1994, the Speyside Way

Ultramarathon An ultramarathon is a footrace longer than the traditional marathon distance of . The sport of running ultramarathons is called ultra running or ultra distance running. Various distances, surfaces, and formats are raced competitively, from the ...

has been run from Cragganmore distillery in Ballindalloch to

, a distance of .

References

External links

Official Speyside Way website

Scotland's Great Trails

walkhighlands

Long Distance Walkers Association
{{authority control Footpaths in Highland (council area) Footpaths in Moray Rail trails in Scotland River Spey Scotland's Great Trails Strath Avon Glen Fiddich

See also

References

External links