Castles, Clans and Coldness - Part I

I realised that in recent times, all that has contributed to this blogsite is constant ramblings about how miserable I am, or how busy I am, etc. I haven’t actually sat down and written a proper “travel” entry about the often amazing day trips or overnight trips since arriving in Scotland in April. I’ve done so much travel around Scotland already – Dumfries, the Fife area, Perthshire, outer Edinburgh – and have barely talked about it. So I have decided to actually sit down and write about my wonderful trip up into the Northern Highlands of Scotland this weekend. During last week, I decided that I needed to get away. And I am glad I did it. I’ve come back refreshed and have now seen so much of Scotland, all in just three days!

Saturday: I left for Fort William via Glasgow on Saturday, at sparrows fart (early morning). I had purchased my CityLink bus ticket on the internet for 15 pounds, booked two nights into Fort William and figured the rest of it would just up to God… and the weather. Any time in the Highlands was always going to guarantee two things – the cold, and the rain. And it didn’t disappoint!

Much of the bus ride from Edinburgh to Fort William via Glasgow was through a light misty rain. But what a bus ride it was! The bus followed the West Highland Way, a route around Loch Lomond and the Trossards. The scenery was spectacular, despite the mist, because it added to the eerie feeling given by the deep, ice-cold loch and the misty mountains around it. I have been to a lot of scenic places (ie. Table Mountain Tasmania, South Island of New Zealand, Interlarken Switzerland, Austria) but I must say that Glen Coe, an area just outside of Fort William would have to be one of the most amazing areas I have seen. Not only does it have the mountains and rivers, it also has hundreds of spectacular waterfalls dropping from the cliffs above. It was something really special. In addition, this was the area which was played host to some of Scotland’s most violent history. This was where the MacIans (a sept of the clan Donald) were massacred in 1692 by the Campbell Clan (the evil clan of Scotland). Rather grim, so it made for a very interesting atmosphere as the bus drove through the windy road in the mist.


At midday, I arrived in Fort William, which is the main regional town up in the North Western Highlands and the base for a lot of sports nuts who go climbing Britain’s largest mountain, Ben Nevis, “for fun”. It was still raining, except I realised now that I was out of the bus, I was going to have to wear a raincoat – which I’d forgotten to pack. Suffice to say, there were enough raincoat-selling shops around (hey, it’s the Highlands!) and I armed myself with a raincoat which came very handy of the next three days. While I was in buying up big in the raincoat department, I overhead some of the climbers saying that the weather was going to be particularly poor over the coming days and that they were going to make the most of it that day while it was still nice. Taking their advice, I dumped my bags at the hostel, and wandered off to explore my first (and certainly not the last) castle of the weekend – Inverlochy Castle.
"Originally dating back to the 13th century, Inverlochy Castle last played a part in Scottish and English history during the Civil Wars of the 1640's. In 1645 the royalist Earl of Montrose routed the roundhead forces of the Campbell Chief Duke of Argyll at the second Battle of Inverlochy."

After that, I managed to time it well enough to board the famous Fort William – Mallaig train, which is said to be one of the best train journeys in the world. I had planned to do this trip way/back in 2001, when I was last in Scotland but due to unexpectedly (?) poor weather (ie. Scotland’s worst blizzards in 30 years), all transport had stopped going anywhere higher than Edinburgh. But this time I did it, and in hindsight, was glad I took the advice of the climbers and went that day, as visibility was very low for the following couple of days.

The weather was still quite average, which didn’t really make for very good photography but it was still a great experience. I don’t know if I would completely agree that it is one of the best train journeys in the world. As I said, I’ve done some pretty spectacular ones in my time – the Arthurs Pass in New Zealand, the Rocky Mountains in Canada, and plenty in Switzerland which I would say were far more scenic, but I still definitely enjoyed the beautiful scenery, don’t get me wrong! I suppose it has just been “hyped up” a little recently, as much of the journey, including the GlenFinnan Viaduct was used in the Harry Potter film.