Day zero

Travelling from Edinburgh to Fort William. Which seems to be quite straight forward, tickets in hand and Lothian buses with a good reputation. But hey, this is not Zürich where they let every passenger in the remotest PT stop know that there is a Marathon on in the City Centre and the buses were not running on time. So, even though we hiked down to the bus stop well before the departure of our train in Haymarket, we were only just able to make it with -1 minutes spare, thanks to other people being delayed and jamming onto the train. Doing that with a blind person was even more remarkable.

So that was us dieseling towards Glasgow. Incomprehensible that the most used line in Scotland is just about to be electrified, but here we go. Close your eyes and the noise makes you think you're travelling at 320 km/h... Guess on this island they will never get there on timetabled trains.

Change in Glasgow Queen Street into an even older train. Again incomprehensible that on one of the most scenic trainjourneys in the world, they jam walkers, hikers, tourists and the odd locals into outdated rolling stock. It's like telling everyone, hey, we got some of the nicest scenery on offer but we make you suffer for it.  But we loved the journey and the beer was still cold from the trolley. At least at the beginning. The vast- and emptiness of the countryside is staggering and my mind already started to slow down and take in all the colours, the odd snow capped mountain and the beautiful sunshine.

Once we arrived in Fort William, a heatwave struck us to the platform floor and we just managed to get a taxi that took us to our B&B (56°48'26.1", 005°07'38.5"). This was run by a lovely and resolute South African woman. We got some dinner at a Chinese restaurant which was sort of OK and saw the rare occurence of the Waverley, which does not stop very often in Fort William as you may find out from the link. So considering that, we were very lucky people. We then strolled back to the B&B, where I discussed various important topics with the landlandy before falling into bed for a good night's sleep, for day one would bring some more physical action than the day that was just about to disappear, but not really since the combination of latitude and season means that the stars are barely visible at night.