Fort William

Low cloud again, so we cycled part of the Great Glen cycle route before the weather deteriorated into a dispiriting light rain. The pothole riddled canal towpath palled after a while so we turned off along a quiet road to Spean Bridge, stopping off at a very posh hotel for expensive but very good coffee and scones. We lunched by the commando memorial, in honour of the wartime training which took place in this area.

Spean Bridge is an attractive village and the rain had ceased by now, so we spent some time looking around before returning along a delightful road through the forest.

Back at Fort William we took a look at the sleeper, which would take us most of the way home in a few days time. The Fort William portion comprises one first class and one standard class sleeping car, a lounge car and a seated coach. At Edinburgh the train is shunted with the six coach portions from Aberdeen and Inverness and the seated coach is detached to form a 15 coach train which an electric locomotive takes on to London. The seated passengers from Fort William have to alight at Edinburgh and join one of the seated coaches from the other portions.

Ben Nevis