Touring Scotland – Monday

Up just after 8am and down to breakfast. We don’t often make the time for breakfast at home so a real cooked breakfast is a real treat. Fortified for the day we set off from Banavie to Mallaig. It’s a pretty route and we take a few detours onto alternative routes, mainly through villages that have been by-passed, as we try and stay on as much of the old road as possible. The forecast has been for heavy showers passing through, and that’s what we get, but, we manage several stops en route when the rain eases and when we get to Mallaig, it stops after we’ve spent a few minutes sitting in the car and while there’s a strong breeze, it’s dry and we explore on foot. Needless to say we missed the 08:40 ferry to Skye (by 3 hours) but we walk up the hill from the shops and find a view point that makes the effort worth while.

White sandy beach near Arisaig on our way to Mallaig


After about a 60 – 75 minutes we are back in the car and heading back to Mallaig, but instead of heading straight back we decide to take the long route down the A861 to Strontian and Loch Sunart, returning to Banavie via the west side of Loch Linnie. My camera has chewed up it’s batteries so we stop by at the hotel to pick up some spares I have in the room before heading off to Fort William and an escorted trip round the Ben Nevis distillery at 4pm, followed by some whiskey tasting and the purchase of a bottle to bring home. Then into town for a wander round and a bit of window shopping and finding a suitable place to eat later that evening. It’s getting cold and it’s 6pm so we head back to the hotel for a bath, to freshen up and change. We then go back into Fort William to the pub we’d chosen as our evening meal venue, returning to the hotel and retiring via the bar and a wee dram.