Sunday, June 16, 2024
We spent four nights at a lovely house on the shore of Loch Eil, a short distance from Fort William. The house was built on the footprint of an older railway cabin and is positioned right beside the railway line to Mallaig. A few Scotrail trains go past each day, but the main attraction is the Jacobite steam train.
We took a very wet trip out to Mallaig one day. The town felt quite grim but that was most likely down to the weather. The scenery is harshly beautiful. It's quite a touristy spot being the midway point for passengers on the Jacobite, and the fish and chip prices were surprisingly high. It's been a bit of a shock getting used to UK prices again.
The next day the weather was much nicer and we had a walk along the Great Glen canal and Neptune's Staircase - the longest set of locks in the UK. We even saw an otter swimming in the canal. Following that we took a cruise in Loch Eil where we saw seals and surprise fighter jets. We had a great clear view of Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in the UK) which supposedly is covered in cloud 340 days of the year!