7/8/10 Dave H. Biked up from the spittal bridge on the Cairn O Mount road. The track up by the Burn of Baddymicks has been improved to the extent you could drive a car up it, as has the track over to Clachnaben and most of the way to the top of Mount Battock. Only the last 1 km is at all difficult (apart from being a slog that is). There has been absolutely no attempt to make the new tracks blend in and the landscape is now very ugly with red gravel tracks everywhere, heaps of debris by their sides and small quarries all over. It looks very much like the initial stages of a new business park, except that if it was it might eventually look better. I suppose this is all being done for the benefit of grouse shooters who can't be bothered walking anywhere, but exactly who would want to shoot birds in this industrial landscape I don't know. Only took 2 hours 10 for the round trip.
