I was itching to get riding. Literally. Leaving my lovely if lavishly midgy waterside wildcamp, I enjoyed the last couple of miles of smooth car-free tarmac alongside Katrine before rejoining the public road network at the ferry pier on its eastern end. Only four more lochs today to complete the dozen in this ‘Lakiest Ride in Britain’.

Loch 9: Achray

I took the road along the north side to Brig o’Turk, but that probably wasn’t the best. Views were elusive and brief. When we do the photoshoot for the magazine article on this ride later on, we’ll come along the south side instead, where the road often hugs the shore and offers water access.

Still, this was another pleasant, hill-circled, discreetly-villaed, handsome loch ticked off. I hacked across some tracks south of Brig o’Turk through a farm to join the network of gravel roads in Achray Forest.
Loch 10: Drunkie

Twice winner of ‘Scotland’s Most Comical Loch Name’, Drunkie is tucked away in forest and on fire-roads. There are cars and car parking, because it’s on the Three Lochs Forest Drive. Pah, they charge cars £3, and you only see three lochs. Well, I’m doing a dozen, hah!

I followed a short path down to a viewpoint for my photo, and by skilful choice of shooting position and composition, managed to exclude the half-dozen wildcamping tents, and piles of rubbish left by partying yobs up from the cities. Otherwise, a nice little loch.
Loch 11: Venachar

Almost rhyming with ‘Lineker’, Venachar is a longish and splendid loch with the customary backdrop of colourful hills. I now had some blue sky, so it photographed a bit more attractively than the drizzly lochs of yesterday. The four-mile bike path – NCN7 – along its southern shore is a story of two halves. The western two miles is bad, bumpy, stony and rough; I kept muttering to myself things like ‘What! Call this a single-digit National Cycle Route? It’s an assault course!’.

The eastern two miles though is a nice smooth car-free tarmac road, and I stopped muttering. Until I saw more piles of rubbish left by louts, and started muttering again. Until I saw responsible wildcamper cyclists on the eastern shores, and stopped muttering again and smiled and waved back at them.
Loch 12: Lubnaig

A bit of a detour here, up NCN7 from the outskirts of Callander, to bag that dozenth loch. Fortunately it’s a lovely railtrail on excellent tarmac that goes four miles up the western shore of Lubnaig, a long loch said to be good for canoeing and SUPing because it’s relatively sheltered from winds.

Unfortunately the railtrail is so narrow for some stretches that I wondered if fat-tyred MTB tyres would overhang the edges of the tarmac. After the surface turned to gravel I carried on for about half a mile to get to a picnic table and take my final shot, of my celebratory lunch by the lochside.

And that was it: my twelve-loch ride complete. I headed back along NCN7 and snacked on Scotch pie in the pleasant tourist town of Callander before returning to Dunblane, where I started yesterday, and from where the train took me back home.
It’s been a grand trip. I’ll put up the exact route here when the article is published some time in 2025, I guess. Maybe I’ll have stopped itching from the midge bites by then.
Miles today: 35