Fort William

I have started writing this from the 12/01, I will summarise our trip prior to this in a later post.

12/01/12 Thursday

Today we went adventuring around the Nevis area. We started off with a cable car up the Nevis range, to the base of the ski fields, outside Fort William. To be honest, it was not worth the pounds or the drive. It was windy as hell going up there- so much so, that before we got in the cable car, they loaded it down with some heavy drums of water or sand. The cable car still blew around like crazy and the scenery wasn’t much- with a mountain bike path and some rain. We got out and nearly got blown off the mountain attempting to do one of the walks. Then the café was priced as you would expect at the top of a mountain. So we got straight back on that cable car and made our way back down.



Unimpressed faces



The view from the cable car



We then drove up the road to look at a very old viaduct, upon which runs a lovely steam train. More importantly, however, the viaduct was filmed in the Harry Potter films, as the big bridge that the Hogwarts Express runs over! We climbed up a track to gaze upon its glory and lo and behold a train ran across it. It wasn’t a steam train- but the Hogwarts express would surely be disillusioned to look like a normal train. So in fact, today, we saw the Hogwarts Express Huzzah.



  



Harry Potter viaduct!



The Hogwarts Express?



Across the way from the viaduct is a very impressive monument dedicated to the first stand of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1740’s, it is an extremely tall tower with a kilted man atop, and a low stone wall running around it. It was set against the most amazing outlook, and we tried to picture how it might have been, with Bonnie Prince Charlie and perhaps a gathering of Jacobites making speeches and flying their flag.

Cliche'd little shot





After we made lunch in a car park (ha ha) we wandered round Fort William. We had previously tried to find ‘Fort William’ and followed the wrong coloured sign for a couple of miles only to find ourselves directed back into the town. Today, however, we stumbled across it. There isn’t really anything to see any more, only a couple of signs, rocks and a big open field. But it used to be big enough to have a town named after it, and one of its prior owners was forced to get rid of it to make room for some railways. (Readers of the Outlander series of Diana Gabaldon take note! This is the fort where Jaime is flogged.)



What is left of the fort.... super awesome photo with shadows





The main street of Fort William isn’t very exciting but it has lovely cobbled streets and some old pubs. We managed to get some appalling service at two of the supermarkets. The first is pretty outrageous so I think I will mention it just quickly. We popped into one of the shops called Lidl, to find some snacks or something. We picked up some vegetarian sausages (which were delicious btw- meat snobs) for 99p and took them to the counter. They scanned through at 1.50 and I said  “oh I thought those were 99p”. The shop lady screamed across the floor to her manager to check the price (after which she told us how bad the sausages we were buying were, and all the customers around us had a chat about it!) and we were told her not to worry as it was only 51p or something.
Her manager screamed back “which price are they scanning at?”
“one pound fifty” she yelled
 “that’s what they should be” he yelled back.
And so, we took our sausages, embarrassed over making a fuss and we looked back and literally SAW the manager taking down the 99p sign!
By that time we were nearly out the door and didn’t say anything, but what a pathetic thing to do from a manager, of course it is only a little amount of money, but it was the whole reason we bought the stupid things!



We did try to go to the Ben Nevis Distillery, for a wee dram of the dew of Ben Nevis, but it too, was closed.



On the way to Fort William





We also drove up to the base of the great Ben Nevis (the highest peak in Britain) and contemplated climbing to the top (four hours up and three hours down), but unfortunately for Graham (and fortunately for me! Ha ha) It is more dangerous in winter and you need proper gear in case something goes wrong.

Melaina and Graham xoxo