Slochd Stagecoach Traditional Cache
Teuchters: Sorry - I haven't been able to check this out. I'm archiving it as no-one has found it recently.
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Twenty miles south of Inverness, the A9 route north is channeled through the Slochd Pass. There are at least five ways through the Slochd, which means "the Slot".
For hundreds of years, these paths have been built, improved and then abandoned as new bigger and better ways to the north were established - but all through the same pass. General Wade came here in the 1700's and Thomas Telford improved upon this route later.
The path to the cache is in fact the old stagecoach road to Inverness from the 1800's. What is now called "the old A9" is the tarmac road that you must take, leaving "the new A9" road built in the 1980's. So going to this cache is like going steadily back in time.
As you follow the stagecoach route, you can see the viaduct that carries the main railway
through the Slochd also. This in itself has a long history, as the first railway line north followed the River Spey all the way to Keith before going west to Inverness. You can trace this line (and bag a few caches) set by Oso de Oro.
This was replaced by a second line which went over the Dava moor and is now used by the
Strathspey Steam Railway as far as Grantown. The continuation to Forres is a nice cycle route (The Dava Way)
The current line now follows the Slochd route and was only made possible by building two
mighty brick viaducts - one here and another near Culloden plus an iron viaduct at Tomatin. The viaduct here is the "highest" in the UK apparently in terms of altitude above sea level. Anyway, back to the cache.
Park just off the "old" A9 in the large car park at N57°17.433 W003°54.809. You cannot drive from here. Go through the gate and right on the stagecoach road all the way down to the open field at the end. GPS reception is poor on the track when the trees are in leaf but there's only one way to go. You can see the remains of the stagecoach bridge, which has been replaced by a small wooden footbridge. It looks dodgy but is really OK.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pebff oevqtr, sbbg bs nohgzrag ba yrsg
Treasures
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