An Eigg-citing Journey in Scotland

My latest Scottish adventures took me to the western side. The Isle of Eigg was the principal aim, but getting there also provided a chance to stop in at Fort William (briefly) and Mallaig (twice).

Once again, it was the Caledonian Sleeper, departing at 9.15pm from London Euston, that got me out of England. It's great that this service is still going and that it has a guaranteed future. It's unique and has a real romance to it. But, most importantly, it means you can wake up to views like this:

Immediately after disembarking the train at Fort William at about 9.30am, I found myself standing next to one of the two steam trains that run the 'Jacobite' route from Fort William to Mallaig.



This is one of the longer steam train journeys available in the UK, taking an hour or so and passing through the stunning Glenfinnan.

You may already be familiar with Glenfinnan through the Harry Potter films:

That was to come later. First, though, I had a few hours to kill at Fort William before catching the afternoon steam train. All I really wanted to do after the sleeper journey was have a coffee and read a paper. To my surprise, Fort William Station, although small, is well equipped. It even has showers. So their spacious cafe was perfect, and before I knew it it was time to make my way to the platform, where the other train was waiting for the afternoon trip:



The ride was gloriously scenic and very busy with excited tourists, although one sulky teenager was less impressed as he turned to his parents and asked:
"Do we have to take this thing back as well?"

Clearly he hadn't experienced the alternative- the Scotrail service train- which is a self-explanatory example of why the Harry Potter film-makers went with steam.

Along the way we stopped at Glenfinnan, for photos, and for the engine crew to get coffees personally delivered:

We arrived in Mallaig a while later, and settled in at The Moorings B&B before heading out for a very pleasant evening walk in the warm sunshine:

We found dinner at the excellent Cornerstone Restaurant, which is upstairs in a building overlooking the harbour and has great seafood. The Stornoway Black Pudding starter was just beautiful, and the service was friendly. All in unassuming surroundings. Afterwards we strolled around the harbour and even managed to see a seal, right in with the boats.

The next morning it was off to Eigg. We fought off the early midges and boarded the Loch Nevis, one Calmac's relatively recent additions to the fleet. It's compact but efficient, with a cafe and plenty of observation space on board.

Lots of people got off at Eigg as well- the first sign that it wasn't, as I'd previously thought, an extremely small island with about 20 minutes-worth of walking to do. There were some great views to take in, including sandy beaches and fantastic, sweeping hills:

The island also has a small arts and crafts shop, with a cafe, by the pier. A small church can be found up the road from the beach, and there are other small surprises along the way including the old post office building- now a sort of museum. We stayed at the brilliant Kildonan House where we were catered for in real style. Even if the weather had been poor (which it wasn't), it would have been so relaxing just to hang about in the beautiful house and gaze out at the view.

The next morning it was back to Mallaig. We stopped at Seafari, who have just recently started a service from there, to spend an hour on the boat looking for wildlife. The whales eluded us, but there were plenty of guillemots and seals to be seen:



There were times when it felt like we could have been out on some Southern European coast. I'd never seen so much sun cream being used in Scotland.

We spent lunch at the Tea Garden, watching the world pass by, and then boarded the Scotrail train back to Edinburgh (changing at Glasgow). I will not go into much detail about this other than to say that it was a) a very, very long journey; b) had no catering; c) did have a jobsworth guard who was happy to lie to passengers in order to get them to sit in particular seats when no moving was necessary.

I can't recommend Eigg enough, and Mallaig has plenty to offer as a base of operations. Now it's back to city life, but surely it won't be long before a return visit it made. 



Watch very carefully. I shall run this only once.

The first daft but noble thing I ever thought about doing was a Land's End to John O'Groats cycle ride. It was about ten years ago. Luckily, I realised that it would be very hard and, as I am ultimately lazy at heart, that I wouldn't really enjoy it.

Unfortunately, my cousin Danny didn't reach the same conclusions when he had the idea a few years later, and I ended up being involved in LEJOG in 2010.
My second daft but noble idea was to run the London Marathon after being inspired by one of my step-brothers. This time, my admiration didn't diminish, but after a few hours we were back to a situation where wild horses couldn't drag me to apply for a marathon, or even a half-marathon.
After this I modified my ambitions. I applied for the Sport Relief mile but circumstances intervened and I never got round to it. The 2010 and 2011 Be A Gunner, Be A Runner events came and went, too, and I didn't pay them much regard other than supporting their causes.
And then the 2012 one was announced.

Meh, I thought. What the heck. I'll apply. I can always pull out.
But I didn't pull out, and soon had my Dad on board too.
Meh, I thought. I can still pull out before...oh wait, I can't. Not really. I'd better get training!
It turned out that this is what wouldn't work out.
I loathe running. It bores me, and I also find myself getting irritated by the enormous number of joggers constantly shuffling/zipping/darting about my personal space in my corner of SW London. I had expected to get over this for the sake of not humiliating myself at The Emirates but bad weather/work/procrastination got in the way. So I concentrated on general fitness. Pizza Hut menus gathered dust in the kitchen drawer. Coffees were skinny. Desserts remained on the supermarket shelves. The Wii Fit suddenly got used several times in a week. My bike was pressed back into regular service. I played football whenever I could, to stay active. Three weeks before the run, now alarmingly being called a 'race' in the newsletters, I decided it was time to jog home from work.
Did I mention I'd been playing football? Perhaps I should have explained that this was done on a concrete surface.

The dull ache of shin splints brought me to a stop within 100m. I continued as best I could, but was unable to put more than a few seconds of running together. I rested up as much as I dared for the next few days, then tried again on flatter ground round my area. Same thing.
I was now really worried about the run and consoled myself with the picture I'd seen from a previous event of a person clearly walking part of the 10-lap, 6.4km course.
I pretended not to note that she was slightly overweight and at the very least in her early 60s. I thought of my Dad, who had been doing lengthy-ish runs for several weeks now. I began to map out where the marshals would be when the inevitable moment of quitting the race would come, perhaps 4 laps in.
Fast forward now to Race Day, and there we were, near the Woolwich entrance to the stadium, freezing in a very chilly wind and both wondering if we had made a terrible mistake. Lucozade was downed. Questionable stretching skills were applied. A desire for scarves was felt. The large black T-shirt offered no insulation:

Stuart Amory took the warmup in entertaining fashion, and as he did so I found myself casting my gaze to the course, gated off to my right. There didn't seem to be many gaps at all in the gateline, except at the finish line. If I did bow out, it was going to be very obvious: I couldn't do it at the finish line, I realised, because they might think I had come first. I would have to explain that I was in fact bailing out...it would just be too awful. I'd be better off hiding behind a pillar and slipping out hours later as the clearup was starting. But it was too chilly even to be doing that.
As we progressed through some suggestive hip-swivelling I found myself sizing up my fellow runners, trying to work out who might end up being a walker or just very very slow. Unable to believe myself, I felt marvellously out of my depth. Not only was I dressed like a runner, wearing a race number and 'dancing' in public at a football ground in North London, I was now scanning my fellow fundraisers like a vulture, hoping to find reassuring signs of weakness that would make me feel less of an idiot. So much for that warm, happy feeling you're supposed to get when you do something for charity. I had somehow become cold-hearted cynic. What next, I thought? Will I be elbowing runners to the ground in order not to be last? Will I fake an injury to get out of it when the going gets tough?
Dear me, I thought, as I tried unsucessfully to rotate one arm forwards and one backwards. That moment at Norbury Football Powerleague last year when you handballed it in the heat of a game has clearly got to you.
Finally, the 'race' began. I got two laps done before the shin splints began to appear, at which point I slowed the pace and plodded on, gradually walking short stretches from around the 4th lap. With my iPod kindly remaining in my shorts pocket and not flying out as it had threatened to do, I was managing a lap for each song almost all the way round. Detaching a square on my wristband for each lap, I suddenly found that I was on the last two laps. A warden on Gate K, and the general build-up of spectators ensured that I was still running for at least half of each lap. I picked up the pace to a full run for the last one and completed it in 50mins, being rewarded with the first actual medal I've ever got for sport:

Who knows if I will do it again next year? I think I do...and I think not. But I may well come by and watch and of course support the charitable cause, which this year was Save the Children, following CentrePoint and Great Ormond Street Hospital (for whom I did LEJOG) as Arsenal's recent Charity of the Season. 

So it turns out running isn't too bad, after all. But if I had to choose between doing LEJOG again or running a marathon...well...I'd have to think about that one.