This morning we were up early to make it to Armadale well in time for our
9.45am ferry back to the mainland. We enjoyed our whistle-stop stay on
the Isle of Skye and it's certainly somewhere we'd like to visit again,
however next time we would do it in a car to make more of the island
accessible than in the motorhome. Our crossing to Mallaig was on the
rather old and tatty MV Loch Fyne, but it was perfectly fine for the 30 minute
journey, albeit a tad cold for the kids up on deck, and we were soon back on
the mainland and on our way towards Fort William.
Our original plan was to stop at Glenfinnan to see the famous viaduct enroute
to our campsite on the outskirts of Fort William, however having read a few
horror stories about the lack of motorhome parking, we had a new plan devised
late last night to drive straight by, miss the parking chaos and head back to
Glenfinnan by scheduled Scotrail service. With only four normal
passenger trains each way per day on the line between Fort William and
Mallaig, we had to get our timings spot on and we decided on Banavie station,
adjacent to the locks of Neptune's Staircase and large free car park as the
best place to leave the motorhome.
At this point all seemed to kick off with our troublesome trucks in the back
of the van. We can't remember exactly what the catalyst was, but Forrest was
annoying Paloma and Paloma was annoying Forrest. Living together in such
a confined space with increasingly overtired kids has been the biggest
challenge of the last 12 days and today for a time I really did just want to
pack up and head home. After a bit of an ultimatum that we wouldn't head
to Glenfinnan if behaviour didn't improve, we were off to the station.
Our train arrived a few minutes late, for the picturesque 25 minute journey to
Glenfinnan, including crossing the now famous "Harry Potter" viaduct before
the station. Despite having almost four hours before our return journey,
I was a little concerned by just how far it seemed to be from the station to
the viaduct and with our train running a little late and the second Jacobite
steam train of the day not too far behind, it was a bit of a rush to get to
the main viewing point in time. The older troublesome truck was still
not very happy, so myself and Paloma went ahead, although Amber and Forrest
did manage to catch us up just in time.
With the mad exodus after the train had passed we found a good space for a
picnic before continuing on the circular trail under the viaduct and towards
the visitors centre. At this point just across a small stream, Amber
noticed a young Scottish Red Deer munching away at the grass. Despite
all the people staring and snapping away, it minded its own business and
continued munching, refusing to look up for his audience.
Time was now getting close to the first return steam train so we made our way
up to the viewing area close to the Visitors Centre. Whilst much easier to get
to, the view isn't as good as from the viaduct trail and it was difficult to
avoid the bus loads of American tourists. We also had a good view of the
visitor centre car park from up here and watching the many motorhomes and cars
being turned away validated our plan to take the train today instead.
We took the lower loch side walk back to the station, which whilst negated the
need to walk alongside the road was not the scenic walk along the loch side
that the name suggested, and we then retraced our route to Banavie on the
service train. The Scotrail services were both four carriages, but were
very full with I'm sure some people being forced to travel ahead of schedule
due to the RMT strike tomorrow.
All that was then left was to head to our campsite at Linnhe Lochside Holidays
to rendezvous for one final night with Jana and Petr before they start the
long drive back to the Czech Republic tomorrow. It's a big site with a
playground so the kids had some fun there, followed by a short walk along the
edge of the loch before tucking in for the night.
Blogged by Matt.
