Scotland September 2004

Having tried every other form of travel up to the highlands Gary and I decided to try the overnight Scotrail sleeper train from London Euston. The sleeper train, as its name suggests, is a train with private rooms and bunk beds that takes goes from London overnight to Fort William (amongst other places), which we thought was a great idea, we could just get out on the hill, having not really sacrificed any time at all. Great in theory, but this was the begining of a long nightmare.

I ordered Apex (cheap advance booking) tickets online over 6 weeks before the trip, and opted to pick them up from an automated machine at my local station. I picked them up the following day, but found that the reservation was incorrect, we had no bunks for the return trip and only one for the trip up. The following weeks involved a fiasco of call centers in India (only call their help line between 10am and 2pm, the guys in India are very polite but don't have the ability to do anything), and issues with the company policy which prevented me from having any form of alternate reservation (one member of staff admitted that Scotrial was at fault, but stated that there was no way I could have a free upgrade or alternate booking, instead why not spend a further £315 on replacement bookings and then get a refund on the difference after the trip was over). Eventually, 4 weeks later, after a series of complaints, threats and hours on the phone someone called me and said that we would be provided with replacement bunks, and a return booking. For those of you who have not visited the UK this process is fairly standard when purchasing tickets for any long distance train journey, or indeed any short distance journey. Sadly the return trip from Fort William didn't exist, so we'd be given a free 3 hour trip to Glasgow where a train sleeper did run from.

As it happened Scotrail had made another error, we didn't just have one room booked out for the two of us, we had two (hence the very smug looking photos on the trip up).

Getting there

South Glenshiel Ridge

We caught the coach from Fort Bill (short for William for those of you who don't know) to the Cluanie Inn, arriving in the early afternoon. Having stopped in for a pint (we don't condone drinking on the hill, but we had to stop there for the one, they serve great beer) we headed off to do the South Glenshiel Ridge. The weather was good on the first day (the 22nd by the way) and we camped just below the summit of the first peak on the ridge. The weather the following day was phenomenal, we started early watching the sun come up (see the photos below, sunrise especially) and after a great (and slow, I could do with being a bit more fit) day we decided to finish early and set up camp. We used one of the Pepsi G stoves I've described here (a picture of it can be found here). You can also see the sunny photos of the 2nd camp site, followed shortly after by the rolling cloud bank that spelt the start of the rain. Very wet we arrived back at the Cluanie Inn, which is the next photo, the following afternoon. We caught the bus back to Fort Bill and stayed in the MacBackpackers hostel.

Bad Weather Bimble

The following day, having dried off and not really wanting to get too wet again we decided to do a bimble around the base of Ben Nevis. We started at the visitors center, went a short way up the tourist track and doubled back along the path toward Fort Bill, before coming back to the visitor center. Whilst we'd been walking the rain had started falling quite heavily and as we got back we saw that a new weather report was out. 100mph gale force winds on the summit. Driving rain. Windchill well below zero. Oh and lots of people in jeans and trainers trying to climb Ben Nevis. I asked a couple of girls wearing jackets without hoods, jeans and new boots if they knew that the weather was so bad, they nodded, grinning at their daring, before thinking about it and telling their Dad. He said he didn't care, they were going home tommorrow and needed to do it today. I hope to god they turned back before the end of the car park, but if not at least the jean-pool (get it) is a little thinner. After watching a few more familys' hurry off to their deaths Gaz & I went shopping. I called this days photos' bad weather bimble.

Ben Nevis

As can be seen in from this website, I began mountaineering in 1995, and despite having climbed many times during winter in Scotland, and attempting a winter route on Ben Nevis, I'd never actually reached the top, even by the Tourist Track. The weather was still bad on the day following the gales so we decided that Ben Nevis via the Tourist Track. Not much more to say really, click the images to see the photos (as you see it was a bit wet).

Nevis Range

Our return train journey was early in the afternoon, so on our last day we took a trip to the Nevis Range for a ride on the gondolas. Not much more to say really. The last set of photos are from the trip home, in there you can see a few random pub photos, the now disused car off-loading ramp (that would be a good service to see return, saving the drive up the country and the cost of car hire), oh and that sleeper train that didn't exist (hence my expression).

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I should mention that the Sleeper Train itself was a great experience, the staff were great, the food good, hot and cheap and it was pretty special being able to go out to the pub after work, jump on a train and arrive in the highlands the next morning after a nights sleep. The only problem is Scotrail themselves. There was a move by the management to shut down the service some years ago, it was saved through public pressure, maybe now the plan is to make it so hard and unpleasant to book tickets that the service will fall into disuse. Despite all the problems we had I would still reccomend the sleeper train, just make sure you book by phone and well in advance.

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