Long foot-bridge to Broom of Moy across the Findhorn and its rather dry river

May 2016

"How far is ’t called to Forres?" says Banquo to Macbeth - and that was all I knew of the town of Forres until I took the short train journey from Nairn to Forres and started on a walk up the Findhorn river.

The River Findhorn flows past the western outskirts of Forres and it was a traffic-filled 20 minute walk along the A96 before arriving at the start of this walk (Walking World id=4254).

At last, next to the garden centre on Gresholm Road and at the point where new flood defences have recently been completed, I ducked under the railway viaduct and followed the river towards Findhorn Bay. The path is badged as Forres Footpath Trust who produce several walking guides to town and country.

In fine sunshine the river and its banks were attractive and calming, though the river itself was surprisingly low in level (especially given that they need flood defences), with many places where the pale rocks of the river bed were more obvious than the water itself.

There are several places to pause - benches and fishing huts - and having already walked 5 miles or so in Nairnshire in the morning I took advantage to rest my sore legs and gaze over the sunlit river.

The walk rather let me down by being more linear than circular. Having reached a rather ill-defined northward limit I'd expected to find a way of crossing to the other bank, but the instructions (and the only choice) was to retreat to the footbridge (pic top above) and use that. However as this was so near to the beginning of the walk I did actually retrace my steps to the beginning - after an abortive attempt to take a short cut back to Forres town centre.

In the end it was a very pleasant walk in warm conditions and after walking back along the A96 to the station I opted to rest my legs and wait for the next train rather than explore the joys of Forres. So although I now know how far it is to Forres, I don't know what it looks like if I ever get there!