Fort William, inverness,Scrabster, Orkne

My walk into Oban this morning was still blighted by rain even after the glorious sunrise at 5.40 a.m. after visiting the bank 🏧 to make sure I had enough cash for the journey I am now waiting for the 9.20 bus to Fort William. This is the first bus to go to Fort William this a.m.

The trains are on strike again and liable to do so at any time making travel by train unreliable. Again the morning is driech, people are out and about with their dogs, or just doing their morning run, going to work with their costa coffees in hand, just an ordinary morning for them.

I'm off to Orkney today and excited for the journey up to Fort William then across to Inverness to catch the train to Thurso and the ferry from Scrabster to Stromness and a bus to Kirkwall to the hostel there. I anticipated a full day of travel, enjoying the scenery and the joy of again travelling through this beautiful land. The trip to Fort William went smoothly all along Lock Linnhe to Ballachullish and Glen Coe a stunningly beautiful ride through that amazing country side. My heart leapt for joy.

Getting to Fort William in plenty of time to get some late breakfast I popped into Morrisons, my word what a carry on. It took an age to get served then an age for food to appear and only after asking how long it was going to take interrupting a staff member standing around catching up with customers they knew or filling other orders, placing cleaned cups in the racks. After an interminable time I had to ask for take away containers for the food to go when it finally arrived, to catch the bus to Inverness.

This was an amazing trip as well, passed Loch Eil, up to Spean Bridge where memories of Matthew and Rachel's sojourn there in 1990 came flooding back... they had come over to UK to work and tour around before coming back to NZ to begin their family. Matthew was a chef there at Glen Spean Lodge and Rachel a house manager. While they enjoyed their time, they were also pleased to return to NZ.

Twenty minutes into this journey we came across a line of traffic seemingly going on for a mile, a truck carrying heavy farming machinery had come to grief on the road ahead losing an axle!! This was to be my undoing today, lucky that this hadn't happened to me before, the driver informed me that we probably wouldn't make the bus I needed to complete my travel arrangements for the day, but I remained hopeful.

I sat in anticipation all the way to Fort William after the road was cleared which took around 20 minutes. This marred my enjoyment a little of this ride up again through the lochs Eil, linnhe and loch lochy such amazing scenery again I was soaking it in at the same time anticipating what may happen at Inverness, all the while holding my breath.

I was struck by the amount of people at Fort Augustus as we travelled through the beginning of Loch Ness and saw a crowd of people at the Caledonian canal all tourists looking for "Nessie". I certainly enjoyed and anticipated more beautiful sights along the loch before arriving at Inverness.

Sure enough although the driver had called the bus station in Fort William, by the time we got there fifteen minutes late for my bus, it had departed. Rather disappointed, I consoled myself calling the hostel in Kirkwall Orkney to let them know I wouldn't be checking in tonight but could they transfer my bed to Inverness. This they managed to do and so I made my way to the hostel at Inverness.Read more