Blogs from Fort William, Inverness-shire, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 5

Coming back from Ben Nevis, we did a stop in this colourful town along the banks of Loch Linnhe... Fort William is the most important town in the Western Highlands, after Inverness acquired the status of a city, and it forms the natural centre of a very large area transitted by several roads and rail routes. Most visitors in the Highlands would need to drive through its dual carriageway along the banks of Loch Linnhe to be able to make it to several of their final destinations. In 1690, William - Prince of Orange -, built a fort in the area which would give it its actual name. The town is a recommendable stop for those travelling on a self-catering holidays, as the High Street has a reasonable amount of shops, small commerces, and supermarkets. It ... read more

Returning to Scotland after living in the western USA we found ourselves scoffing at the pitifully inadequate size of the mountains... "I have four and a half thousand feet for breakfast!" Emily bragged. So we resolved to hike up Ben Nevis just to show how menial a task it was. The tourist trail sounded quite boring so decided to hike up Carn Mor Dearg and along the ridge up the north side. Starting at sea level we hiked up through the forest and into the moor where we caught sight of the big mountain. We were enjoying walking along the trail with Ben Nevis on one side and Carn Mor Dearg on the other and when we approached the climbers hut we realised we were heading straight into an enclosed cliff face where the only way ... read more

Wootness! Well, the good and the bad has been happening to us lately... __ Lets see... We went on a ghost tour at the end of day 4, in which we were invited to step into a circle of stornes that curses anyone who enters. Guess who entered the stone circle? We did! We were then told that two days later bad stuff would happen. Eeep! Day 5... We head off to the Isle of Skye, where we walked across a bridge to our newest two day home. We have been staying at a chain of hostels known as the MacBackpackers. Awesome group of people, awesome price, awesome-ness all around. Meanwhile... back to Skye. We hiked around the island on a bunch of random islands we found at low tide, and got to a sweet castle ... read more

The following is copied and pasted from my journal, written as soon as I got back from Glenfinnan last week: Wednesday October 3, 2007 10:48pm I’m jotting this down quickly before I forget. Left Tuesday 4:50pm for Glasgow. Switched trains (had an hour and a half layover) and got up to Ft. William about 10:00 Tuesday night. Checked into MacBackpackers hostel (bought t-shirt!), went to Grog and Gruel pub, came back to sleep. Got up early, caught 8:30 train to Glenfinnan. Middle of nowhere, but walked down to monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie and Viaduct to take pics. (train on the way there went by Hogwarts Castle sign-bearing red steam train!!! Alas, no pic of this) Saw small camera crew and small security crew on banks of Loch Schiell, assumed documentary was being filmed. Asked. Found ... read more

Ben Nevis Challenge The gauntlet of climbing the highest mountain the UK was laid down and a team of seven signed up; myself, Ashley Bowers, Phil Cartmell, Sam Thrower, Owen Bouwer Claire Nicholson and Kathryn Shackleton. Arriving on Friday 29th September we soon realised the extent of what we had let ourselves in for. I would describe the Nevis Range as the lake district on stilts. After a very cold night camping at Glen Nevis campsite we got our gear ready and set off at 8:30. We quickly realised that map reading skills were not needed as plenty of other climbers were tackling The Ben The first section nicknamed the Elevator took is toll quickly, this section was two hours of relentless stone steps. The teams spirits were kept high by my constant lying that the ... read more