Oban to Fort William

We woke to bright sunshine this morning in contrast to the mostly grey, dreich weather after our arrival. Before leaving Oban, since the weather wasn’t suitable yesterday, we decided to make the trek up the ‘hill’ to McCaig’s Tower.

View Larger MapIt’s a good thing the views from up there are spectacular, because the drive up to the tower were far from it. Narrow streets, stone walls, parked cars. I might be 50 shades greyer after the drive.

I offered to take a photo for a young couple since he was taking pictures of her. It’s not often on holiday you get photos of you together. They were very appreciative of the gesture. Afterwards, the guy thought he would try to walk along the narrow ledge on the wall to the next opening. He succeeded but not without a helping hand.

We went our separate ways for a bit. We went out onto the observation platform outside the tower for some photos. It was considerably cooler out there without the stone walls to protect you from the wind.

Shortly after coming back within the ‘warmth’ of the tower, we met the couple from earlier. This time they returned the favour and he took a picture of Don and me together.

Before we left, I took one last photo from within the confines of McCaig’s Tower.

Next it was off to Fort William as we had a date with the Jacobite Steam train that we didn’t want to miss.

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I’m not sure why yesterday I was convinced our rental car was a Skoda. Perhaps only functioning on a couple of hours’ sleep on the plane? Once I got a good night’s sleep in, I clearly realized that the car was, in fact, a Vauxhall. Still a six speed manual and the driving today went even better than yesterday. Again, maybe because I was better rested?

There was no parking available at the train station so we came back to the B&B we had booked for tonight to see if we could leave our car there since we were checking in tonight. Well, they bent over backwards to accommodate us – brought us to the house adjacent to the main building where we’d be staying and we were checked in straight away.

A couple from couple from the continent sat in the seats opposite us on the train. We were all quiet until he got a phone call and then pronounced loudly “they’re idiots!”. Well that cracked us up and from that moment on, we visited with them.

As the train approached the Glenfinnan Viaduct aka Harry Potter’s Bridge, it slowed allowing us to get some wonderful photographs.

We stopped at the Glenfinnan Station a short ride up the tracks for about twenty minutes where we could get off the train, stretch our legs and take photographs. Then it was back on the train to continue our journey to Mallaig.

It was really hard to tell if this church was still used or not because of its remoteness to anything and the plainness of the structure. What’s your call judging by the photo below?

The heather grew in clumps along the rail line but in places way too close (I thought) to be able to get a decent photograph. But I was wrong. Still, the mountains weren’t as purple with it as I had hoped. Maybe we have to get a bit further north?

The end of the line at Mallaig, and I mean the end. After the train stopped everyone rushed to the street to get a photo of it. Me included. I waited a few moments and as soon as a free spot appeared next to the stone wall, I squeezed in and got this picture.

We decided on our way to Mallaig that depending on the size of the bottle of champagne on offer (for a fee, naturally) we would get a bottle for the ride home.

After a poke around Mallaig, we stopped at the fish and chip takeaway, got an order of fish and chips each, then sat on a bench on the platform and ate them. After all, we didn’t want to get pished (as they say here) and fall off the train when we got back to Fort William.

On our return journey, our seats were on the opposite side of the train and our carriage was closer to the back due to the way they turned it around. We got different views this time, but our friends from the continent were our seat mates again.

Once the train got rolling, the bottle of champagne and two glasses were brought to our table. Don asked for two more and after they were brought to us, he opened the bottle. It had been shaken enough with the jostling of the train, being picked up and sat down that when it was opened, it sprayed all over everything and everyone – including people across the aisle!

On the way to Mallaig, we saw a herd of about ten deer on the mountain. We were hoping we’d see some on our way back and we weren’t disappointed although there weren’t as many this time round.

After sharing our bottle of champagne (what didn’t get sprayed away) – and yes, it burns your eyes – our companions bought us each a beer and we continued our journey in convivial company.

Just outside Fort William, we crossed over the Caledonian Canal and the locks known as Neptune’s Staircase.

As we were getting ready to detrain, a young couple across the aisle asked us which part of Ontario we were from (as they had overheard our conversation) and come to find out they were from Ottawa – basically in our own backyard.

We said goodbye to our companions and made our way back to our B&B.

Let’s play SEEKING SARAH SHAND!

At 11:00 pm last night I still hadn’t got all the pictures I wanted for this post downloaded. I was a bit bleary-eyed from being up so late so decided to finish up this morning.

After our breakfast, our next destination is Dufftown. will post more tonight.

Glasgow Airport to Oban

 My plan is to blog every day (dependent on Internet connectivity) but the majority of the places we’re staying all boast having wi-fi on their websites. So we’ll see how well it goes.

For fun, I’ve come up with a game to play throughout our travels. It’s called “Seeking Sarah Shand”. The idea is, I’ll post a photo of my book at various locations – sort of like “Where’s Waldo” but different. You try to guess where the photo was taken and either email your answer to me (for those of you who aren’t comfortable leaving comments on blogs) or leave it in a comment. There will be clues in the written part of the blog post since I couldn’t be that mean… or could I?

This is the route we plan on taking to get from Glasgow to Oban where we’re spending the night at High Cliff Guest House.

View Larger MapDespite not leaving Toronto on time, our flight got in to Glasgow Airport fifteen minutes early, which was quickly eaten up waiting to get off the plane and then at the car rental desk. Our booking couldn’t be found so they gave us an even better car – a silver Skoda Astra diesel with a six speed manual transmission. It took me a bit to get used to shifting but the driving bit on the wrong side of the car and road came back straight away. Hubby isn’t comfortable driving here so he navigates and lets me drive.

We didn’t go the route we originally intended and in a way, I’m glad we didn’t. The A82 was narrow and bendy enough in stretches and it was always at the most inopportune moments that we met traffic on a bend crowding into our lane.

View Larger MapThe intended route was longer and the A816 was much narrower (according to google street views) so despite running into some heavy rain showers (the heaviest rain always seemed to hit when we were in a bendy, narrow stretch of road just to add to the fun).

On arrival at High Cliff, we couldn’t check in right away but were able to leave the car there, so we walked down to the town to get a late lunch/early supper so we could have an early night. Being up since early the morning Saturday, we needed lots of sleep tonight.

It rained on our way into the town center so we didn’t walk up to McCaig’s Tower. We would have gotten drenched had we attempted it. Maybe the weather tomorrow will be more conducive to an up close and personal trip (by car on our way to our next stop.

In the end, we went for a fish tea at The Caledonian Hotel (the large beige coloured building with the tower).

While we ate our fish, chips and salad, the rains teemed down. We were glad we were inside where it was dry. There was more than one poor soul walk by looking like a drowned rat.

We waited until it let up and made our way back to the B&B. Rather than lug two heavy suitcases upstairs, we only took out what we needed and put those things in two cloth shopping bags I had packed.

These next pictures are of our room…

And now it’s time to play SEEKING SARAH SHAND!

So leave me a comment with your guesses where Sarah turned up for these photos, and if you’re not comfortable doing that, drop me an email (melanie@melanierobertson-king.com).