Happy wedding anniversary to us. That’s now 38 years.
The early morning campsite had a full moon setting.
We were heading north and the first part of the journey was now familiar territory. It was through Oban, up to Connel Bridge, past Benderloch and then the Barcaldine Forest. We now moved to new territory for this trip, crossing over Loch Creran on a bridge not shown on our map. I was expecting a dozen extra miles to go round the head of the loch but soon we were in the Strath of Appin and heading out to the west coast proper. At Portnacroish we could see Castle Stalker, below us on its little island.
I shall do a bit of photo enhancement there, but we were in one of those mornings with mist I describe as ethereal and there was a generally grey look to the world.
Now back to ‘real’ photos or maybe I should say ether-real shots.
There’s a promise of blue skies there – but I can love fog that reaches half way up a hillside and then leaves the tops in the clear.
Oh yes! Very ethereal!
We travelled quickly to Fort William where it was raining.
It’s a little town, nestling at the foot of Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis. But he wasn’t ethereal. He was a total gonner at the time.
We went to get to know our transport for the onward journey to Mallaig.
Yes, it was to be a steam train. I must now be a nerd and comment on this engine. The loco was built in 1937. Sir Nigel Gresley designed it. He’s best known for his A4 pacific called Mallard which holds the world steam speed record, or maybe for his earlier pacific loco, the Flying Scotsman. Number 62005 was built specifically for service on this line – From Glasgow to Fort William and on to Mallaig. How wonderful that more than 70 years on it is still doing the same job. The engine is not called The Jacobite. That’s the name given to this train service. But the engine does carry a name.
Lord of the Isles is a name added since the engine has been used on this service. Back in its real life it had only the number.
Getting to know this engine included climbing on the front buffer beam and then going in the cab to make sure the fire was OK.
That looked to be burning well. Now to make sure the driver had a clear view ahead.
I can see a red signal so we’d better not leave yet.
That was our fireman, responsible for keeping the fire burning and the steam pressure high in the boiler of number 62005.
To the railway company The Jacobite was just the 10.20 to Mallaig with an intermediate stop at Glenfinnan.
For most travellers it was a journey to be enjoyed as something very special.
With steam gushing from our loco, we were on our way.
