Glasgow and Corrour

Back in April we had a few days relaxing north of the border, once again visiting one of our favourite places, Corrour, but also having the opportunity to spend a night in Glasgow and explore Scotland’s second city once again. There a few previous posts covering Corrour and Glasgow and you can find these here, here and here.

Having made our way to Edinburgh with LNER (read about that here), we jumped on a ScotRail ‘Express’ service to Glasgow Queen Street and on arrival made our way to the nearby Premier Inn to check-in. We could have made it to Corrour in a day, but wouldn’t have arrived until gone 9pm and so decided to have an evening and relaxed morning in Glasgow, before catching the 1222 north the following day.

Dinner was at a restaurant recommended by one of Beth’s colleagues, Paesano Pizza on Miller Street, not far from George Square or our hotel. There are 10 core pizza choices on the menu, ranging from £8-£13, with some specials as well and all the ingredients are sourced from Italy, providing that authentic feel. This popular restaurant doesn’t take reservations, so we had a 20-minute wait for a table, but the food is worth the wait!

Breakfast the following morning was at another Glaswegian (and Canadian) institution, Tim Hortons, which has a second location conveniently near our hotel. Having filled up on breakfast warps and coffee and with donuts in hand for the train later, we headed slightly out of the city centre, to our first stop of the day. Glasgow Cathedral is one of Glasgow’s top tourist sights, but one we had failed to visit on our previous visits to the city, and so with a couple of hours to fill this was the perfect time to fit it in.

Consecrated in 1197, Glasgow Cathedral is both the oldest cathedral in mainland Scotland and the oldest building in Glasgow itself. The current cathedral replaced an earlier building from 1136, some of the remains of which can be found on display in the building’s Lower Church. As we started to explore the Cathedral we discovered that free guided tours were available, provided by the ‘Friends of Glasgow Cathedral’. These tours are turn up and go dependent of demand and so we ended up with a private tour given our visit was on a random weekday in April. I’d definitely recommend joining a tour if you’re able as we learnt more about the Cathedral than if we had just wandered around and, with a private tour, we were still able to continue at our own pace.

With the Cathedral finally ticked off after way too many visits to Glasgow, we didn’t have too long until our train and so didn’t really have time to visit anywhere else, however did have sufficient time for tea and cake. We’d spotted Caffe Mulberry on our walk to the Cathedral and as it was on our route back, we popped in here for a drink and delicious slice of cake. Caffe Mulberry also does more substantial food, so check them out if you’re in the area, they’re just a few minutes’ walk from the Cathedral or High Street railway station.

An enjoyable morning in our favourite Scottish city under our belts, it was time to head further north, with us catching the 1222 Scotrail service from Glasgow Queen Street to Oban and Mallaig. The vast majority of northbound West Highland Line (WHL) services operate as a combined train of six carriages as far as Crianlarich, before the front pair detach and continue to Oban. The remainder of the train continues across Rannoch Moor to Fort William, with (usually) just the rear two carriages then making the final 40ish miles to Mallaig.

Unfortunately, the dividing of the train at Crianlarich caused a few issues on this occasion, with what became the front unit of our Fort William portion deciding to ‘throw a wobbly’ and have some technical faults. With these overcome we continued north and arrived at Britain’s remotest railway station around 30 minutes late. Despite this being only our third visit to Corrour in four years, one of the members of staff, Harry, recognised us and welcomed us back with check-in completed without issue.

After settling into our room and then heading up to the signal box lounge to relax for a while, it was time for some dinner. With Corrour Station House and Signal Box being run as part of the Corrour Estate, a speciality of the menu is Venison from the Estate’s own deer and from previous experience this makes some exquisite food! Beth opted for the Venison Stew, whilst I went for the Venison Burger and as usual these were delicious, and although Beth didn’t finish hers, this is due to the sheer size of the portions provided.

During dinner I did nip outside briefly to see two services operated by GB Railfreight come through the station. The first was 6S45, the North Blyth to Fort William Alcan tanks which transport powdered aluminium to the smelter at Fort William, whilst the second was the southbound Fort William portion of the Caledonian Sleeper. This part of the Caledonian Sleeper runs south to Edinburgh, where it joins with the Aberdeen and Inverness portions before the entire train continues to London Euston. In the morning, the reverse happens with the northbound service splitting into three parts before they continue to the ultimate destinations of Aberdeen, Fort William and Inverness.

For our first breakfast in Corrour, I opted for the classic Full Scottish breakfast, whilst Beth went for the Scrambled Eggs with Salmon, both of which were great for fuelling us up for the day. Our plan had initially been to get the first northbound Scotrail train of the day and head to Fort William in time to catch a boat tour from the harbour. Unfortunately, a troublesome tree had blocked the line south of Crianlarich meaning by the time the service arrived in Fort William, we’d have missed the boat and, as much as we like Fort William, we didn’t really want to just wander around the town again.

With the weather not great but holding up enough, we decided to go for a walk around some of the nearby moorland, initially heading over the ‘Trainspotting Bridge’, before heading up to the lower slopes of Leum Uilleim to the southwest of the station. Corrour is a great place for walking, with two Munros (mountains atleast 914m high) and plenty of other peaks to climb if you’re adventurous enough, or flatter walks around Loch Ossian or to Loch Treig if you don’t fancy a mountain. Our walk certainly helped to clear the cobwebs, although I did end up with my backside in a bog and a twisted ankle at one point. Thankfully I was able to hobble back to our room to get changed and then make it across to the station house for a lunch of a Croque Monsieur!

With a storm closing in the Rannoch Moor, the weather certainly didn’t invite anymore outdoor activities for the afternoon and so we headed back across to the signal box lounge to hunker down. A couple of games of scrabble, some blog writing (SPU-ZRH Croatia Airlines) and a couple of books helped us while away the afternoon and it quite cosy watching the storm with blankets and a heater. A slight let up in the rain gave us opportunity to run back across to the Station House for dinner, with us opting for the Roast Chicken and Fish & Chips.

Our final full day in Corrour dawned with some more awful weather, meaning our trip to Fort William was cancelled once again, and we settled in for another day of playing board games and relaxing in both the Station House and Signal Box. I started off the day by eating the last Haggis in the kitchen as I opted for a Haggis Eggs Benedict, before we stupidly decided to go for a short walk during a supposed gap in the weather. We started off heading along the path towards Loch Treig, passing the Corrour Summit sign and deciding to see how far we got.

The gap in the weather was shorter than expected and we were soon soaked, although given we got to a point where we wouldn’t get wetter, decided to carry on a bit further. Eventually we reached a point where the bog had completely blocked the path and there were no well placed stones to bridge the water, meaning we turned around and sploshed our way back to the station. A change of clothes and a warming lunch of soup and a scotch pie helped to warm us up and start our afternoon camped in the Station House.

Despite us staying in the Station House until after dinner, our afternoon was still pretty eventful. Unfortunately, two separate groups of walkers had an individual that got injured and the Station House staff were great in using their Land Rover to go and rescue them, and the drama was rounded up with a spilt bottle of red wine at dinner. For our final dinner at Corrour, we both went for their signature dish, the Venison Stew, this time accompanied with some cheese and mustard mash. With the storm still making its presence known, we had a blustery run back across to the Signal Box and fell asleep listening to the wind and rain striking the moor.

The storm blew itself out overnight and our final morning in Scotland started with a beautiful morning. Another full Scottish breakfast, some more board games and a scotch pie to take with us for our lunch and our time in Corrour was at an end for another year. As always, we had a great stay and once again the staff were amazing and made us feel so welcome. Remember if you have the opportunity, Choose Corrour!