From Faskally we rode downhill to Pitlochry. The very name always brings a smile to the faces my sisters and I, when touring back in the '60's ( almost 60 years ago) Dad would always try to pronounce the names with a Scottish accent. We children di d not tske it seriously and Pitlochry was pronounced with the "t" & "l" joined together and then the "o" was drawn out, out as long as you had breath, followed by a short sharp "cr" sound. We found it most amusing, poor old Dad had no idea what was going on.

So it was with a happy heart that we descended upon Pitlochry that morning.We rode through town heading for a supermarket at the far end of town. We turned into the street and Wendy stopped at the phonebox to check a few details. I wandered across the road to look at the bookshop and was delighted to find that it featured my two favourite authors Alistair MacLean & Jack Higgins along with the butt of our Xmas jokes Clive Cussler. From there we headed out to the Pitlochry dam & fish ladder.

Salmon and sea trout return to breed in the rivers where they hatched but they have to bypass the dam first. Parliament also required hydro-electric schemes in the Highlands to safeguard fish stocks. So engineers designed Pitlochry’s famous fish ladder, with its thirty-four tiered pools that safely shepherd them upriver and homeward. Screens keep large fish away from the turbines so that young fish can pass safely through the turbines on their return to the sea. The fish-friendly design of the blades acts like a revolving door and Pitlochry’s salmon ladder has been crossed by over 250,000 salmon since it was built in 1952.

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