Inverness – Gateway to the Highlands

Inverness, capital of the Highlands and one of Scotland’s seven major cities, lies at the mouth of the River Ness where it meets the Beauly Firth just to the south of the famous Moray Firth. With Inverness sitting 903km from London, the UK capital is just 1km closer to the Highland city than the Norwegian capital of Oslo, and having arrived into the city of the Caledonian Sleeper, I certainly felt I was in a completely different world to the one I left behind in England.

EUS – INV Caledonian Sleeper – Club Room

Heading from London to Inverness, there are just two direct trains each day, LNER’s ‘Highland Cheiftan’ which leaves King’s Cross at 1200 and the Caledonian Sleeper’s ‘Highland Sleeper’ which leaves Euston at 2115. Having decided to tick off a bucket list item on this trip, I was booked on the latter, a journey that would take just over 11 hours and cover almost 600 miles through the night.

EDB – PBO LNER – 1st Class

After an excellent week in Scotland, we took a train from Glasgow Queen St, back to Edinburgh with enough time for us to have an enjoyable lunch at our favourite restaurant in the capital (Maxies!) before catching our LNER service back south of the border and home. Having paid to leave our bags at left luggage (this one was open, however as it’s staffed it costs a fortune), we made sure to pick them up within the 3 hour time period and so headed to the first class lounge for somewhere to dump them and sit in the warmth until our train.

Glasgow

Glasgow, Scotland’s second city, but the country’s most populous, is located on the banks of the River Clyde and, in rail terms at least, is the Gateway to the Highlands. With us passing through the city to get to and from our Highland Adventure, we decided we needed to spend some more time in the city and so, split between the start and end of the holiday, we did just that.

Oban

After a night in Fort William, a ride on The Jacobite and a wonderful couple of nights in Corrour, we were back on the West Highland line (WHL) and a ScotRail service, initially heading south to Crianlarich before changing trains and heading down the WHL’s western branch to Oban.

Choose Corrour!

Corrour, Britain’s highest and most remote railway station, more than 1300ft above sea level and 20 miles from the nearest public road. We were inspired to visit here after watching ‘All the Stations’ in 2017 and their more recent returns to Corrour. Within a couple of hours of stepping off the train, we were in love with the place and beyond glad we came.