the rail journey begins!

We left the land of potatoes and headed to the land of bagpipes, haggis and tartan. Landing in Edinburgh after a short flight, we were immediately in awe of how beautiful the city was. Our airport bus took us to the centre of Edinburgh where we piled into a taxi, which delivered us to our humble little hotel just a short trip from the centre. When I say "we piled", I really mean that we piled! In the taxi rank, you have to take the first available taxi which in our case was one of those stereotypical UK black taxi's. It had 5 passenger seats which was lucky, but it lacked luggage space. These taxi's also lack a front passenger seat (I'm guessing for the security of the driver), so we were forced to squish into the back. It was a delicate operation trying to get us and our luggage to all fit. Some bags went under seats, some went between our legs and some went in the void (that's usually filled with rubbish from the driver) where the front passenger seat should have been. But! despite our initial thoughts, we made it to our hotel safely and soundly with all of our luggage intact.

We were warmly welcomed into the hotel and were taken to our rooms for the night. We asked our lovely host where we might find a nice place to get some dinner. She told us about a nice pub just a short stroll up the road that she frequently goes to for dinner. We'd learnt from previous experience that it pays off to listen to local advice on places to go and this was no different. The place she told us was so good, we went there multiple times. We decided that since we were no longer in Ireland (where Guinness tastes it's best) that we should expand our horizons and try other local brews. This pub, which is called The Reverie (highly recommended) had a great selection of brews to choose from. We sampled some Caledonian from Edinburgh and Hobgoblin which we didn't know at the time was brewed in little ol' Witney in Oxfordshire. After a great night of tasty food, beer & laughs as we reminisced of our travels through Ireland, we walked back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

We woke up bright and early in the morning (our trusty hotel lady packed us a breakfast for on the go) and we headed to the train station to begin our rail adventure. All aboard the rather modern train (luggage included) we set off towards the quaint town of Fort William. It is here where I must tell a rather embarrassing story... The toilets on this train were fancy. They opened at a push of a button and once inside, you have to push another button to lock the door. The lock indicator was a little ambiguous so if you weren't really savvy with modern contraptions, one might think that the door locked automatically once inside. You might think you know where this is going but I will tell you now that it wasn't me who was caught with their pants down. Anyway... I needed to use the facilities, so I made my way down to the end of the carriage to the toilet and pressed the "Open" button since there was no indication that the cubicle was in use. What I saw inside was a rather flustered lady trying to do her business in peace. Red faced and embarrassed, I quickly searched for the "close" button and madly dashed back to my seat hoping that the lady was too busy trying to hide her private regions to see my face! I recounted my embarrassing story to the family and sat looking out of the window and held my bladder for at least another hour until I was brave enough to go back to the toilet. It demonstrated a great lesson for the rest of us that day - we all made sure the door was locked before dropping our pants.

I could go on about how beautiful the scenery was on the train but I find it hard trying to describe the views without using the cliché words like beautiful, magnificent and well, you get the point. What I will say though, is that you should definitely go on your own rail adventure in Scotland because it was pretty damn spectacular! Unfortunately because of the windows and the fast movement of the train, it was quite difficult to capture the amazing views on my camera.

We arrived in the town of Fort William and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by it. I'd come to expect the town to be a dirty little tourist hole with nothing much to look at, but was instead greeted by a lovely, clean little town with great shops, cafes and wonderful mountain ranges to look at. Since our holiday was during peak season, we were limited with hotel choices so this was the night that we had come to dread: we could only find a place which had a family room to offer us. A single family room. Which meant we all had to share one room and one bathroom. Although it sounds horrible at first, it's nothing a good set of earplugs and a trusty cupboard couldn't fix. During times of bickering (face it, it was bound to happen with five of us within a few square metres of each other) I retreated to the cupboard and sat until the air cooled and it was safe to come out. We had to work out the best schedule for bathroom use and we also established a "lights out" time which worked out quite well in hindsight.

Our humble room.

Roy pouring cocopops into a bottle of milk for breakfast.

Roy enjoying his cocopop milkshake.

The view from our hotel room.

We had an afternoon of exploring in Fort William and because we couldn't work out something that all of us wanted to do, we decided to split up. The girls went for a little bit of retail therapy and the boys headed to Aonach Mor where they took a gondola ride 650m up to admire the views of the Nevis mountain range.

Even though we had a rather squishy room with a fair few frustrating times (nothing too bad), Fort William's charm made up for it. It was a lovely little town and it was a perfect town to begin our exciting rail journey through the West Highlands of Scotland. More "choo choo" stories to come!