Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 56.7919, -5.26794
Started out with a "Full Scottish Breakfast." OMG! My pants are tight.
Today we rode on the Hogwarts Express. Well, kind of. It's the Jacobite Steam Train from Fort William to Mallaig on the coast. But one of its engines (painted red for the movies) and some of its coaches were used in the Harry Potter movies.
We crossed the iconic Glenfinnan Viaduct with 21 arched spans. And just as I was about to snap an incredible picture of the crossing… my camera battery died. 😞 Instead, you get this fuzzy blue picture from my phone.
The scenery all the way up and back was gorgeous, and the steam train an adventure. When the train suddenly came to a halt on the way back I said to Charlie, “Dementors”! But it was only some idiot who had gotten off the train after the announcement had come on telling us
not to get off – we only had 2 minutes at this station. He then ran after the train, jumped on the back and was hanging on for dear life until someone noticed him out there, and they stopped the train. Probably some crazy American.
The town of Mallaig is nothing to write home about but we grabbed some lunch and walked to the waterfront. You can see the Isle of Skye from there (part of the Inner Hebrides).
When we got back to Fort William around 4 we still had plenty of daylight left (well, it gets dark late here – we're pretty far north). So we drove up to Fort Augustus at the of Loch Ness. You can see in the picture our important discovery. Oh wait. That's just Charlie holding a flower stem. Dang.
Fort William and Fort Augustus are 2 of the forts built by the English to help combat the Jacobites (followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie) in his ill-fated quest to reclaim the throne of England for the Stuarts. The forts were also instrumental in enforcing the "clearances" which essentially destroyed the clan way of life. Many of the Scots living in the Highlands were "exported" to the US, Canada, Australia or Ireland. Kilts and bagpipes were outlawed, clans disbanded, homes burned, clan chiefs killed in an attempt to eradicate any Scottish resistance. People still talk about the Clearances, and resentment against the English is still high.
Coming back from Lock Ness we could see
Ben Nevis in the distance and loved this view of the clouds hanging low.
We're staying at a lovely B&B here north of Ft. William and spent a couple of hours tonight with our hosts chatting about Scotland, politics here, their quest for independence from England and lots of other things. Great fun to hang out with a “real” Scottish couple.
Tomorrow off to Edinburgh for a long, long day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0392s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb