Training, Locked In & Lached Out

Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Nairn, Scotland, United Kingdom
Once again getting behind in reporting. We got up on Tuesday morning, had breakfast & headed over to try and get a "rush" ticket on the Jacobite, a steam train that runs from Fort William to Malaig. People book months in advance for this trip, but they sell off a limited number of tickets every day for people who show up early on the day of travel. We lucked out & got tickets (in the bar car, appropriately). It's a very scenic ride and the sport on the ride is trying to get pictures of the steam locomotive with good backdrops, by leaning out the windows (& avoiding getting smacked by branches or rock walls). A bit over a 2 hour ride and we arrive in Malaig, a pretty coastal village from which ferries run to Skye. The train only stays there for a bit over 1 1/2 hours and we went for a one hour circular walk in the surrounding hills, then grabbed a sandwich & got back on the train. One of the sights along the way on the train is "Neptune's Staircase, a series of 8 locks along the Caledonia Canal, but it was hard to get a decent picture from the train so we decided to back on our way out of town the next day to get photos of it and the train as it went through. Went for another great meal at night, this time at the Lime Tree. This morning, we packed up after breakfast & headed over to Neptune's Staircase for some photo ops. After the train went through, we headed north along Loch Lochy to Fort Augustus, at the southern end of Loch Ness, where there is another series of locks (only 4 this time). We had lunch there at a pub (Bothy's) and headed up along the west side of Loch Ness. We stopped briefly at Urquhart Castle (a ruins) and through Inverness to the beach town of Nairn, stopping at Fort George along the way. It's not really beach weather here but Nairn is a nice little town and we have a great room overlooking the beach at the Wetherby B&B. Went for a walk and a few drinks and then dinner at a pub just 4 doors away, the Bandstand. Tomorrow, the Whisky Trail!
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