steamy windows, or... from harry with love

We made a brisk start to reach our evening's destination of Fort William by 10am today, as we were prebooked on the West Highland Railway, a journey by steam from there to the coast and back. The weather was overcast and steamy, and the day's reputation threatened precipitation. We made good time to the train and even eventually found our seats. An impulse to clean the prior rain off the outside of our window, from the platform before departure, was well rewarded. Despite further rainfall throughout much of the journey our view was remark-edly better than that of our fellow passengers!

Highland countryside is beautiful, at times rugged, at times ethereal in the mist. Tiny islands floated on ragged slivers of silver water in slashes hewn from the glens. We puffed along in the steam train that has eclipsed its own long previous service to become most famous these days for appearing in the Harry Potter movies. The sighting of a frog at one stop along the way was thus imbued with hidden meaning for excited younger passengers travelling in the world between reality and imagination.

Our destination Mallaig is primarily a point on a line—from road and rail to sea to Skye (the island, not the air). Even for day-tripping temporary locophiles such as ourselves it was a pause more than a visit. Our purchased lunch was consumed in the rain on a pier, in the well-researched knowledge that Mallaig lacks outdoor shelter for hungry passing souls. Yet there is something about the scale of coastlines that makes this diminished hardship seem a suitable part of the place too.

Our return steam-powered journey passes without incident, and with perhaps slightly improved photo opportunities. David's leg however has him in excruciating pain, following a halted slip on rain-greased decking at Mallaig—the only true dampner on the day.

B&B check-in soon completed, we explore a local castle ruin and the 11-lock “Neptune's Staircase", after earlier catching a glimpse of an enourmous passenger boat making its way down, which must have been reaching the 203ft-long craft limit of that lock system. Dinner then purchased, a traditional Scottish meal handed down to early Highlanders by Chinese explorers, and consumed parked out on a pier into the Loch. Ah Scotland.