OLD AND RAMBLING

Welcome to these "ramblings", I enjoy travel, and especialy train travel, and would like to share a few of my journeys with those of you who care to read them, as well as a few ramblings of the mental variety, when I am so moved (!)

(picture of Kyle of Localsh station-opposite Skye)

I HAVE AMTRAK BLOGS AT: http://www.blog.co.uk/amtrak

SCOTLAND BY TRAIN

We left Nottingham on Monday 17th October, 2005 at 8pm, on the train with me was my son Aidan, aged 12 years. We were given a lift to the station and a fond send off by my partner Judith. We got into London, arriving at St Pancras Station on time.

Here in the UK the different railway companies all had their own terminals dotted around the outskirts of London ; so we had a short walk from St. Pancras to Euston Station to catch our sleeper train up to Scotland. We had a wait of about 30 minutes at Euston before boarding the Caledonian Sleeper, being greeted by a rather disinterested attendant who checked our tickets and asked if we wanted either tea or coffee in the morning. Other than that we were given no further information about the sleeper or the journey itself.

We settled ok and found we were provided with towels, toothpaste etc. The train departed on time and we left the window blind up to watch the lights as the train moved out of the station, northward bound... The berth itself was rather like the Amtrak sleeper, rather than the Amtrak “roomette”, being across the width of the train, with the corridor at the edge, rather than the corridor in the middle as per roomette design. There are two bunks, slightly narrower than I recall in the USA, a sink, and heat and light controls. The top bunk would fold up if required, but these berths are designed for sleeping, there are no journeys here long enough to require passengers to spend more than one night aboard train.

Both myself and Aidan slept quite well, but I was aware that we were getting more light from the stations and towns that we passed than we got in America. The train has a completely different motion to those in the USA and there is less track noise here. We had an electric locomotive hauling the train at first, and were moving at speeds of 75 to 100 MPH.

At some point towards dawn I was disturbed, It felt like the Glasgow section of the train was uncoupled and shortly after that the attendant arrived with our early morning tea. After disembarking the train in Edinburgh, (on time) we had a sit down and a hot chocolate. The station bar was open although it was only 7am and we saw several customers enjoying a whiskey and a beer. I had forgotten to bring the papers with us of our hostel bookings but we managed to find an internet cafe halfway up the Waverley steps outside the station. I retrieved the necessary information and we waited for a bus to the Youth Hostel. Unfortunately the bus driver refused to move the bus as a passenger had tried to take his open beer can onto the bus. The passenger looked quite respectable initially but broke into a tirade of abuse towards the bus driver. The weather is slightly cooler in Scotland than in Nottingham but not exceptionally cold. After we dropped our stuff off at the hostel we got another bus back into town. We decided to go to Edinburgh’s seaside, Portobello, and took a bus towards Seaton Sands. I enjoyed seeing the characteristic Edinburgh grey stone buildings along the way.

Wednesday 7.30am
The hostel is quite spacious and it is contained within a large Victorian house,. There was quite a noisy settling down period last night and it had been quite fun to cook our tea and afterwards to play pool in the communal lounge. It has been raining in the night but now has reduced to a slight drizzle. I have just had a shower and am now looking out over a park from my first floor viewpoint. Aidan is looking forward to another hot chocolate later on! It is a shame it is overcast as the train ride up to Inverness might be quite scenic. We leave at about 11.30am from Edinburgh and arrive in Inverness at about 3.30pm.

Inverness
This youth hostel is purpose built, modern and clean, but sadly for Aidan, the pool table was out of use. Being modern, I felt the hostel lacked character, but we were lucky to have a two bedded room just for ourselves. This trip is Aidan’s first experience of hostelling, so it will be interesting what he has to say when we get home!
Our train leaves at around 11.45 am, and the journey takes about 3 hours to the Kyle of Lockalsh, the terminus for the Isle of Skye.

At the Skye Hostel, Kylekin
The journey down yesterday was fine, the train left just a couple of minutes late. Sadly the train windows were very dirty (more than one day’s dirt!) and the views looked quite a bit murkier than need be. This is one of the most scenic rail journeys in Scotland and I felt very disappointed by the state of the windows, rather as I had on the Californian Zephyr.
Kylekin itself is quite small, there is only one small post office and shop combined. There are a couple of pubs but it has an off season “semi closed” feeling to it. It felt really peaceful and quiet, no traffic noise, Aidan said “He would commit suicide” if I decided to live there permanently!

We decided to go to visit the capital of the Isle of Skye, that is Portree. The weather had brightened up and the scenery was really outstanding as we looked out of the bus windows, with magnificent mountain views and far wide open spaces. Portree is compact and we walked around it in about ten minutes and then found the bus back was not for another six hours! We actually enjoyed our time there by visiting a few shops, skimming stones in the harbour, playing eye spy, and watching the world go by.

All Change!

Portree Harbour

Kyle station, Train, Boat.

Our Electric Loco at London