Inverness-shire

After a good sleep in the hostel we jumped back on the bus to Fort William, where we would be catching The Jacobite, the traditional steam train which was the inspiration for the Hogwarts Express!

Along the way we learnt the story of the Onich bridge where a lady had apparently put a hex on the bridge because by building the bridge the government had taken away the work of the ferrymen who used to transport vehicles across. The hex was to only to eventuate if the bridge was ever completed, so the construction workers were able to get a safety sign off and left a few bolts off the bridge and thus the bridge is technically ‘incomplete’ (in an attempt to avoid the hex!)

We arrived at Fort William to the train station to view the Jacobite train, take our photos and hop on!

We sat in one of carriages with the Aussie group members as we went past some incredible landscapes, including the 'where there were lots of people waving from below in the hills (seeing the famous view of Hogwarts Express on its way to Hogwarts!) We were able to ‘Glenfinnan Viaduct' and we were able to 'get something from the trolley, dear!' We shared a chocolate frog (our hologram card was of Godric Griffindor) as we also saw the landscape of Dumbledore’s grave from the movies.

We arrived in the town of Mallaig and had a couple of hours before our next mode of transportation so we decided to grab a quick lunch and explored the town (including a Harry Potter store with all typesof HP merchandise and potions). We ate our supermarket lunch on the harbour on some rocks and played some Monopoly Deal card game (a game which has become an addiction for us on this tour). We sat in the sunshine playing cards for about an hour.

After this, we jumped back on the bus which drove onto the ferry leaving the mainland of Scotland and made our way across to the Isle of Skye! We could get off the bus when we were on the ferry so we enjoyed the view (and the sun) from the top deck with others in our group for the 30 minute ride.

We got back on the bus and arrived on the Isle of Skye. It has a small population but currently relies heavily on tourism. It has a population of around 20,000 which goes up to around 100,000 people in the summer high season!

We stopped at the small town of Sligachan along the way. The Loch Sligachan (known as the ‘slig’) is said to be the fountain of youth and we wound back the clock by dipping our faces in the water! Surprisingly, it wasn’t too cold!

We were then dropped off at our hostel (the other group members were staying up the road at the local inn) in the town of Portree and decided to go for a walk to explore the town, which is the main tourist town on the island. We shared a pizza which we picked up from the takeaway pizza shop and had some wine which we bought from the supermarket (a Malbec from Argentina - we can't get enough!) We ate them in the common room at the hostel which had a lovely view over the water. After our food, we went for a walk up the ‘lump’, a hill which had a great viewpoint over the harbour. We walked up a small tower which had a great view over the harbour. We also explored the harbour before coming back to the hostel to finish our bottle of wine, have some ice cream and played some board games together while watching the beautiful view until sunset which was after 10pm. Considering the Isle of Skye is often referred to as the 'Misty Isle' (due to its clouds), we were very lucky to see such a clear sunny sky!

We stayed up way too late playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire board game and Scrabble!Read more