Alex's Bloody-Minded Highland Expedition - Part 3. DAY 2

It's day 2 of my expedition to the North. Yesterday - battling terrific odds - your hero made it as far north as Inverness. Will his luck hold out or will he suffer a fatal beating with Irn Bru bottles? Read on...


05:00: Can't sleep in this bunker anymore. I get up, shower and read a book.

06:30: After five hours sleep ever I limp out of Mrs Thrills' boarding house. My night has not been eased by the automatic "Freshmatic 3000" air freshener in the bathroom (it precisely simulates the experience of sharing a room with an influenza patient by going "a-shoo!" every five minutes) but at least I slept. I shave with squeezy soap and resign myself to a serrated face for the rest of the day.

07:00: Since breakfast at Mrs Thrills' [1] boarding house is served between 07:30 and 07:31 my bed and breakfast was just "bed". I'm starving. Limp around Inverness to find nothing but tramps and detritus from the night before. It's reassuring to find that even the most picturesque of towns look awful in the morning. A German on a bicycle directs me to the bus station; like bus stations the world over it's fucking grim. Even the obligatory bus-station-man-drinking-Diamond-White agrees.

07:40: Bus arrives. It smells just the way you'd expect the 7:45am Sunday bus in an overcast Scottish town to smell. The clock inside - as it is on all buses throughout the world - reads "22:35". Return ticket to the other side of Scotland costs a bargain £11. My fellow passengers clearly came to Inverness for a night out and haven't yet been to bed; they immediately take their seats, burp and fall asleep. But the driver is... Scottish! I have met my first Scotsman of the trip. Better still he appears to be some kind of bus racing driver.

08:25: The bus climbs out of Inverness. The scenery out here is wild: sheer precipices, mountains on all sides, waterfalls, you name it. The mountaintops are shrouded with mist and soon we are too. It's idyllic, just the way the Highlands are supposed to look.

08:30: St Columba's Well is a real place! Since the rocket-bus is running early I disembark to forage for supplies. St Columba sells me a snickers and a bottle of orange juice for breakfast but he has a suspiciously Midlands accent.

08:50: As we round Loch Ness the sun emerges. Plastic roadside Nessies give way to plastic roadside stags. A succession of even more weirdly named Lochs follow: "Oich", "Lochy", "Eil". No wonder the Romans were too freaked out to conquer Scotland.

09:40: (or "00:30" if you ask the bus) Arrive Fort William five minutes early. All my worrying about late buses was for naught. The Hogwarts Express waits in the station looking like a beautiful thing overrun with tourists. In Harry Potter nobody needed to spend a night in Mrs Thrills' basement or go on a bus smelling of stale highlanders to get to Hogwarts and I rather envy this.

09:55: Board the Hogwarts Express and have a fascinating chat with the driver. Sadly he says I can't have a go. Spoilsport. Get coal all over my jacket anyway.

10:18: Board the boring part of the Hogwarts Express and find my table occupied by a family of frogs with three hyperactive tadpoles. They elect to ruin the next two hours of my life. by squarking constantly (did you know tadpoles can do that?) and playing with bleepy electronic crap. The parental amphibians reinforce this behaviour by giving their little bastards affection whenever they get very rowdy out of the misplaced belief that it'll calm them down. If those kids were mine I'd sell them for glue.

10:31: As the brochures say, this is stunning. Great scenery, remarkable engineering (they literally hacked half the route out of solid granite) and lots of fresh mountain air. I lack the flowery vocabulary to describe how beautiful the journey is but trust me it's worth every penny. The only detraction from this is that many others think so too - the train is packed with noisy tourists. The Hogwarts Express people have a more relaxed attitude to those passengers who elect to ride outside the train, merely remarking "Please take care to avoid hitting trees as they may injure you". Sage advice indeed.

12:25: The steam train arrives at Mallaig perfectly on time. Are you spotting a pattern here? Modes of transport not operated by East Coast tend to be on time, even those run in some of the world's most difficult terrain using antique machinery maintained by hobbyists. I spend the next two hours exploring the harbour and eating lunch.

13:50: Before leaving Mallaig I have decided I must dip my toe in the water. The 20 feet of rocks to clamber down and a fractured ankle are no impediment; I dip the injured appendage into the healing waters of the North Atlantic and in my imagination it heals. [2]

16:30: I find a small park to laze in until the bus arrives. Since Fort William is at the foot of Ben Nevis I call a couple of friends who rented a log cabin here one Christmas and laugh at them for coming out of season. In summer it's great. If the bus wasn't due in 90 minutes I'd climb Ben Nevis, take a photo of myself at the top, name it "You_are_all_pussies.jpg" and mail it to them.

18:10: Bus appears. This one's clock shows no time but at least it smells of perfume instead of Sunday morning. Just as we depart the Caledonian Sleeper pulls into the station; I sigh at it with nerdy glee. The return journey is civilized and uneventful but even prettier than the way out - evening sunlight filters through the trees as it winds around mountain passes and I keep my eyes peeled for fairytale castles, of which there are many. The pubs are still open in Inverness and a pint of Belhaven Best is just what the doctor ordered.

21:30: Back at Mrs Thrills' boarding house. Tonight's room is above the ground, has a comfy double bed and comes with bourbon creams, curtains and a view of Poundland. Truth be told it's pretty habitable and not at all like last night's which was suitable only for masochistic vault-dwellers.


PROPER SLEEP NOW


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Day 2 conclusions: AWESOME. The Highlands are stunningly beautiful. Steam trains plus Highlands = something even more than stunningly beautiful.



[1] This is a very obscure Spike Milligan reference

[2] I broke my toe a couple of weeks back after betting my father he couldn't cycle across a thousand year old causeway and needing to prove it possible myself. In reality it doesn't heal and Mallaig seawater is no substitute for a knowledgeable podiatrist.