July 29 – Driving through Scotland and the Hogwart’s Express

What an awesome day of sightseeing.  The main purpose of our very long drive today was to get to the Glenfinnan Viaduct to see the “Hogwart’s Express” pass over the viaduct.  In practice, this was a truly beautiful driver through some glorious Scottish countryside.  And it was a lovely sunny day for most of the day.  Even Liam loved the scenery and said he would love to live here.  The lochs were beautiful, the mountains mysterious and everything was so green.  

We first hit Loch Lomond, stuff of legends.  The drive along it was lovely.  We stopped at a pull off where we saw paddle boarders and swimmers.  You’d think it would be quite cold. 

Not long after we turned off the road to visit the pretty little village of Luss.  On the way into town we saw a small cottage with a vividly colored front garden full of flowers.  The owner must spend a lot of time working on that garden.

The little village bills itself as Scotland’s loveliest village.  Don’t know if it is the loveliest but it was certainly quaint and very picturesque.  We walked through the village down to the loch.  The houses were beautiful and most had lots of flower pots and window boxes. 

The flowers were gorgeous.

We saw some ducks.  The water was so calm that the reflection of the ducks was almost perfect. 

There was a little white dog checking out the foot traffic and a friendly dog protecting his boat.

And we saw a Barn Swallow preening himself on a bar.  Pretty little bird.

Along Loch Lomond we had some views of Ben Lomond, the largest mountain along the lake.  Some of the top was hidden in the clouds.

We eventually pulled over near a ski resort where we stopped at Black Rock Cottage.  This cottage is owned by the Ladies Scottish Climbing Club. 

The mountain in the background is Buachaille Etive More, or Buachaille for short.

Further down the road was the Three Sisters.

All along this drive our driver has pointed out various sections of the Highland Walk.  It is about 100 miles from just north of Glasgow to Fort Williams.  It takes about 10 days to do the walk.  There are small inns and hotels located approximately a day’s walk apart so walkers can have places to sleep, although many take their tents and sleep in them. 

We stopped for photos at one point overlooking the walk so Liam headed down the hill to the path…then came straight back up.

This valley is Bidean nam Bian (we think…if not then it is close to BnB). 

The waters of Loch Achtriochtan were very calm so we had some great reflections of the surrounding hills.

Next stop was the marina at the village of Glencoe. 

The road traveled along Loch Leven…

to Corran where we saw the ferry on the other side

and the lighthouse. 

We made it to Glenfinnan about 2:00, had a quick snack and then headed off to the nearby viaduct and waited for the Hogwart’s express…due to arrive between 3:10 and 3:20.  Liam, Paul and Elias, our guide/driver, headed off to the hills above the viaduct while Mary stayed down near the Finnan River bridge where she had a view of the entire length of the viaduct.  Liam ended up staying near the river, close to the viaduct.  Right on time the train showed up…

Paul (circled) waiting for the train

and was gone in about a minute.

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Video of Hogwart's train
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The Viaduct.

The waters beyond.

The Finnan River.

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More Glenfinnan Viaduct
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Then everyone headed back to their cars and were off.  We headed on up the road along Loch Linnhe.

We eventually got to the end of the road, Mallaig. 

This was also the end of the rail route.  There was a train in the station that headed out not long after we arrived. 

After a short break and a snack we headed back towards Glasgow...and caught a glimpse of the train at a couple of places.  Once quite close up.

We took a more inland route back to Glasgow.  Along the way we saw a castle across the river.  Eventually we came across the gate house for the castle and stopped to take pictures.  Very picturesque. 

We stopped along the way for dinner at an inn right along a river. 

The Scottish countryside throughout the day was beautiful.  We haven’t taken this type of a drive in some time and we certainly enjoyed it.  (Because of the long distances we let Liam bring his tablet so he spent most of the drive listening to audio books…but did seem to be watching the scenery.)

It was beginning to get dark as we left the inn.  We still had another hour and a half to go to get to our hotel.  It started raining pretty hard along the way.  At least the rain held off until after dark so we didn’t really miss anything. 

Paul and I really enjoyed the day.  The drive was so incredibly scenic.  Liam actually also seemed to think that Scotland was beautiful and we think he enjoyed the day although he spent a lot of time listening to his audio books.