First, the incredible sunset from last night:
This morning, we had big plans to drive to Fort William and take the train to Mallaig to catch the ferry to go see the small isles of Canna and Rum. Waiting for the train in Fort William, I spied a very interesting object amongst other things for sale on a charity table and I joked with Ray that I had spent years looking for the Grail and it was here in the train station all along!
The train had several planned stops and some that they only stopped at if requested--the schedule had 10 stations: Banavie, Corpach, Loch Eil, Locheilside, Glenfinnan, Lochailort, beasdale, Arisaig, Morar, then Mallaig. This was in Karpach:
Then we got to the Glenfinnan Viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter movies. Our train was just a regular train but it used the same route as the Harry Potter Jacobite Steam train. Photo and video of Glenfinnan Viaduct as we went to Mallaig:
So we get to Mallaig and hurry over to buy tickets for the ferry, only to find out that the ferry they are using today is just really the most basic boat and has no cafe or food of any kind! So we threw out that idea and went back to the train station to take the train back to Fort William. (This is the lucky coincidence part--the best missed ferry ever, for if we had gone on the all day ferry trip, we would have missed what comes next.
In Arisaig, a train planter:
So we are traveling on the train and we come back to the Glenfinnan station. And we sit and sit and sit....and all of a sudden, everyone gets very excited--on the train and standing on the platform at the station, pulling their cameras out and readying them. And what do you know, but the Harry Potter Jacobite Steam train pulls into the station right beside us!!!! It was so exciting! We thought it had stopped running at the end of September, but here it was. What a lucky coincidence!
Then it was back over the Glenfinnan Viaduct and on our way back to Fort William and then Oban.
Castle Stalker, used in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" as The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh and "Highlander: End Game." The original castle was a small fort, built around 1320 by Clan MacDougall who were then Lords of Lorn. Around 1388 the Stewarts took over the Lordship of Lorn, and it is believed that they built the castle in its present form around the 1440s. The Stewart's relative King James IV of Scotland visited the castle, and a drunken bet around 1620 resulted in the castle passing to Clan Campbell.
We ate lunch at Corryvreckan, a Wetherspoons restaurant, then did our errands--bank, post office, Tesco for food, then walked back to the apartment.
A house I would love to live in in Oban:
Oban flag:
My touring mice, waiting for tonight's sunset:
