Arisaig 2026 24: Homeward Bound – Glasgow to York

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with another segment of the return journey, ending on a bit of a cliff hanger. There are plenty of photographs.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). We continue with the homeward journey.

THE VAGARIES OF BRITISH TRAINS

To set the stage for the rest of this series I need to explain a bit about the intermediate stages of my return journey. For reasons that I did not originally understand but became apparent during the journey I was booked on three different services for various stages of the journey from Edinburgh to Peterborough:

  1. Edinburgh to York (this service was running non-stop from York to King’s Cross)
  2. York to Grantham (Grantham was the only the intermediate stop between York and King’s Cross on this service)
  3. Grantham to Peterborough

The above while a little annoying should not have caused any problems…

BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE & MEN GANG AFT AGLEY

We were not vouchsafed platform information regarding the train from Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh Waverley until five minutes before departure time, which meant a bit of haste was required to make sure of boarding it. However it arrived in Edinburgh with plenty of time for me to make the interchange to the first of the trains on which I had a seat in which I had to sit for my ticket to be valid. At that point I was pleased with how the journey was going rather than the reverse. However we had a long slow haul caused by trespassers on the track, and the necessity for the driver to go slow so as to avoid hitting them, and by the time we were approaching York making the connection to the my next train was looking decidedly dicey…

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the pictures I took between Glasgow and York…

Leaving Scotland – this is the River Tweed.

Arisaig 2026 23: Homeward Bound – Bridge of Orchy to Glasgow

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with another segment of the return journey.

Welcome to the antepenultimate instalment in my series about my holiday in Scotland.

A TRANSITION POINT

My previous post took us as far as Bridge of Orchy. Two stops after Bridge of Orchy we got to Crianlarich, the point at which the train from Oban joined ours for the run on to Glasgow. It is also a transition point in another way – after Crianlarich photo worthy sights get rarer. For this, and one other reason the remaining posts in this series cover much greater distances than has been the case with the first few dealing with this return journey.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs for this section of the journey…

Arisaig 2026 22: Homeward Bound – Corrour to Bridge of Orchy

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with the next segment of my return journey

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish holiday.

ACROSS THE MOOR

This section of the journey initially featured the expanse of Rannoch Moor, and then featured some other fine Scottish scenery. The journey continued to progress smoothly with the only stops being at stations (it is only beyond Crianlarich, where the train from Oban would join this one, that this service does not stop at every station).

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs for this part of the journey…

Arisaig 2026 21: Homeward Bound – Neptune’s Staircase to Corrour

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with the next segment of the return journey.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my holiday in Scotland (May 30th to June 6th).

TOWARDS THE MOORLAND

As mentioned in the previous post Neptune’s Staircase is close to Banavie station. After Banavie the next station, and the only major one we passed during the period covered by this post was Fort William. We had a short wait at Fort William before moving on. Corrour is a very remote station, in the wilds of Rannoch Moor.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs that relate to this section of the route…

I have travelled on previous incarnations of this sleeper service, the first time as long ago as 1993.
I was not able to get the station sign at Corrour, but this platform direction sign makes it clear which station it is – it being the one whose name is missing.

Arisaig 2026 20: Homeward Bound – Glenfinnan Viaduct to Neptune’s Staircase

Continuing my account of my homeward journey from my Scottish holiday, taking things as far as Neptune’s Staircase.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my return journey. I covered as far as Glenfinnan Viaduct last time.

EXPLANATION

I took many photos on this journey, which has led me to break it into multiple posts, using either landmarks or stations as appropriate as dividers. This post is still exclusively related to the Arisaig to Glasgow leg of the journey, with Neptune’s Staircase being an arrangement of locks not far from Banavie Station, which is the last station stop before Fort William if travelling east. The journey continued to run smoothly between these points.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs that relate to this post…

Neptune’s Staircase
The Neptune’s Staircase signboard

Arisaig 2026 19: The Homeward Journey as Far as Glenfinnan Viaduct

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with first of a number of posts about the return journey to Norfolk.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish Holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This post starts the story of my journey back to Norfolk.

PREPARATIONS

I started my packing on the Friday night, and rose early on the Saturday morning to complete the job. The journey started with the 10:27 from Arisaig, and I had about 45 minutes to kill at the station, as my parents needed to start their own journey a little bit earlier. The weather was reasonable, so I did not need to make use of the waiting room. I was not quite the only one boarding this train at Arisaig, but finding a seat was not a problem. I was due to be on this train all the way to Glasgow where it terminated, which meant that for a few hours at least I was able to relax and enjoy the scenery.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here the photographs I got up to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, which to remind you is east of Glenfinnan station…

The train arriving bang on time, as per the information conveyed by the screen earlier.
The front of the Jacobite Express at Glenfinnan
The famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, viewed and photographed from an eastbound train.

Arisaig 2026 18: Odds and Ends

A ‘fill in the gaps’ post to set the stage for a multi-post account of the journey home.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This post sets the stage for a multi-post account of my return journey.

THE RETURN FROM KNOYDART

The voyage back from Knoydart to Mallaig was uneventful. We did some exploring around Mallaig before returning to the cottage.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE COTTAGE

The cottage was well situated, with some lovely views (I could see the sea from my bedroom window), and I was also impressed by the shower. On the debit side I found it very difficult to get comfortable in my bed, and the kitchen proved to be under-equipped. On the Wednesday night I cooked a version of my signature chicken and coriander dish, and found several problems. There was no way to make the ginger paste – all I could do was chop the ginger as fine as I could manage and add water to it. There was no stewing pot and the largest available pan was not really large enough to be ideal for the purpose, and as I had suspected and made allowances for also proved not to be non-stick, and the lid was not actually quite a match for it. Also there was no lemon squeezer, so I had to juice the lemons by using the thumb and forefinger of my right hand to squeeze. It all worked out well in the end however.

PHOTOGRAPHS

The last of the photos that do no relate to the homeward journey…

The Larven approaching Inverie Quay to take us back to Mallaig.
Malliag from above and the far side of the harbour.
Mallaig Station from the road.

Arisaig 2026 17: Inverie House to the Quayside

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with a second post about our visit to the Knoydart peninsula.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my account of my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This post, which concludes my account of the time actually at the Knoydart peninsula, comes after a small hiatus caused by first work and then yesterday’s weather. It got so hot yesterday that one of the things I did after returning from the West Norfolk Autism Group committee meeting, getting home around lunch time, was to use my shower to give myself a sluicing with cold water just to cool down. Today is still hot, but it is not as brutal as yesterday was.

INVERIE HOUSE TO THE PUB

The walk from Inverie House took in a food garden (no picking allowed, and in any case there was precious little that was actually pickable), and a loop back to the main road, which we followed to the pub.

THE PUB

The Old Forge proved to be a splendid establishment. They had two locally brewed beers on tap, and I went for the historically named “Seven Men of Knoydart” – this designation referring to the first stand taken in the area against oppressive landlords (nb Knoydart has been community owned since 1999). The food was also good.

POST LUNCH

After lunch we walked a bit the other way, and it was during this walk that we saw the waterfall a video of which featured in my previous post (there is another today). We got back to the quayside in good time and waited for the boat back to Mallaig.

PHOTOGRAPHS

We start with the second waterfall video…

Now for the photographs…

Arisaig 2026 16: The Quayside to Inverie House

The first post covering our explorations of Knoydart. Features a waterfall video as well as lots of photographs.

As Norfolk swelters in a red alert heatwave I welcome you to the latest post in my series about my Scottish holiday. In the previous post in this series I covered the voyage from Mallaig to Knoydart. This post starts my coverage of Knoydart itself.

EXPLORING KNOYDART

We made our plan – we would walk to the beach and Inverie House beyond it, then turn and come back as far as the pub where we would have a break, before walking a bit in the other direction. There were lots of interesting things to see along the way.

PHOTOGRAPHS

As a bonus feature I start this section with a video, one of two I have of a waterfall that we saw after lunch.

Now for the photos…

The sign for Britain’s remotest pub, of which more will be said in the next post.
When you in as remote a location as this getting yourself banned is a very big deal!
This is no longer a church – as the skylights suggest it is now a private dwelling.
On the beach – there many shells – I looked for the most interesting ones, and rigidly followed the guideline for such situations “take nothing except photographs, leave nothing except footprints”
Inverie House

Arisaig 2026 15: The Voyage to Knoydart

Starting my coverage of the Friday of my Scottish holiday with an account of the voyage to Knoydart.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my account of my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). Today we move on the the Friday, our last full day in Scotland. For this day we decided to visit Knoydart.

GETTING TO KNOYDART

Although Knoydart is part of mainland Scotland it cannot be reached from outside by road. The only ways for a visitor to get there are by boat from Mallaig or by hiking for over 15 miles across very rough terrain. We took the former option, and our voyage was a very enjoyable one.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from the voyage to Knoydart…

I was much taken with the statue/ monument that can be seen at the summit of this little headland, and took a number of pictures of ti during the voyage.
Approaching Inverie, the only settlement on the Knoydart peninsula