That was it, the last day of cycling had ended in the pouring rain. Now all that was left to arrange was our journey home.
Our first stop was the station where we found the only train we could get our bikes on left Fort William at 7:40AM. This seemed very early but would give us some time to look around either Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Now we had all day in Fort William, what entertainments could we find ? We started in the tourist information which was totally devoid of any information about the immediate vicinity of Fort William. If we had had a car there would have been plenty to do, but we didn't. There was a little museum next to the tourist info which was recommended in my rough guide to Scotland so since it was raining we went to have a look in there.
It was a great musuem, there were only 6 or 7 rooms but each one was simply stuffed with a completely eclectic range of exhibits, no space was left unused and there were even exhibits going up the stairs to the second floor. The first room had a collection of pre-historic arrowheads, some large stuffed birds, bronze age jewelery, a huge canoe of uncertain age, a book about a wooden carving found in the area, a huge stone thing and various other smaller exhibits. Each one was well labelled with copious notes explaining what you were looking at. I think we spent an hour and half or so in this musuem. I enjoyed the old newspaper clippings explaining how the aluminium plant beneath Ben Nevis was powered. It uses hydro-electric power ( power from the glens ) which uses a huge pipeline which travels through a couple of mountains and under various small lochs which are used as emergency overflow valves. It's quite impressive.
After that we decided to go and find Neptunes Staircase which was is the a set of locks on the Caledonian Canal joining it to Loch Linne. Phil had the map showing where this was supposed to be and when we looked at it, the map, we found our way there quite easily. It looked strangely familiar, in fact it was where we had left the Caledonian Canal yesterday. Yesterday however it was raining so heavily by the time we got here we just whizzed through without a second glance.
We stayed to watch some boats come through the swing bridge and make their way up a couple of the locks, it seems to take hours to make it through all of them. After this we went to see the underwater centre where we learned all the interesting attractions which were there have been removed. Then we tried to go on a wildlife spotting cruise but found the weather was just too bad and the boats weren't leaving their berths. Then we had a nice baked potato and spent a couple of hours in the pub.
Due to a lack of anything else to do we went to see Pirates Of The Carribean 2, it was quite long and very silly and I was glad when it ended ( I think there may possibly be a Pirates Of The Carribean 3 ) but it wasn't too bad.
The next day, the last day in Scotland, we were both up early and went down for breakfast. There was another rather ill looking gentleman at breakfast who said he was catching the same train as us.
We made it to the station on time and stowed the bikes on the train. This was going to be quite a long train journey but according to the rough guide to scotland it is the most scenic train journey in Scotland and the UK. Phil slept through most of it but I looked out the window and it was indeed extremely scenic countryside we were passing through. We stopped off at Rannoch to pass the train coming in the other direction ( it is a single track line most of the way ). The other train was running a little late so we had 10 minutes to stretch our legs on the platform and smoke some cigarettes.
Rannoch station is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there is just the station building and platforms in the middle of a vast, empty, moorland landscape bordered by distant mountains. This stop was very popular with walkers and a pair of cyclists who said they were cycling around 40miles into the place where they were staying. This sounded like a fun ride and I'd have liked to be doing it myself.
The train carried on through yet more fantastic scenery, Phil slept on and eventually we arrived in Glasgow. We saw the Edinburgh train was leaving in a couple of minutes so we dashed off and jumped aboard. The journey to Edinburgh didn't take too long so we were soon stood outside Waverly wondering what to do.
Something to eat. Edinburgh was packed with people here for the Festival Fringe, a cheeky family stole our intended seats from right under Phils nose but this was OK 'cos we got to sit inside and watch the lovely American barmaid and hear her moans about the rude, obnoxious family sitting outside. Once again my food was forgotten and it was a long wait for my burger. During the wait we decided, depending on the weather, to go and check out the huge park in Edinburgh which has Arthurs Seat in it. This park has featuered in a book I once read by Walter Scott so I was eager to see it in real life.
We found the park, it is really huge and more like a chunk of country side and the top of a mountain dumped in the middle of the city. The weather was gorgeous with a nice breeze and lovely hot sunshine. We immediately found a hill to go up and went up it for quite some time, looking to my left the view was improving with every turn of the pedals and by the time we reached the top we were quite a long way above the city. Up here there was a large pond and hills to either side of us, the path wound through the "glen" around the back of the biggest hill. We set out to follow this path but when it started heading back down the hill again Phil went off road up another steep climb, I followed. This took us to a fantastic viewpoint overlooking Edinburgh and more or less opposite the castle on Castle rock. Sadly the sun was shining directly towards us so I didn't think my chances were good for any decent photographs. The path down the other side was a bit of a trial, it was too rocky to ride down with too many tree trunks etc strewn across so we had to push the bikes down the extremely steep path. This was a shame since riding down it would have been fun.
We ate an ice cream and found a pub to chill out in and wait for half an hour or so before we had to catch the train. We cycled to the station and got there just in time so by the time we'd got the bikes safely stowed away the train was pulling out of the station.
The journey back to Birmingham didn't take as long as the one coming up so we arrived back around half eleven, just in time to catch the train back to Bournville and cycle home from their. I discovered a set of tunnels under the platforms which I hadn't realised existed before now, we used these to move our bikes from one platform to the next. The train arrived and it was at Bournville station that we said our farewells and set out for the last little journey home. Strangely getting home took no time at all and things which I had previously thought of as hills, such as the minor incline up Dads Lane, didn't seem very impressive any longer, in fact I had the pleasure of overtaking someone up Dads Lane who was just getting off his bike to push it up, he didn't even have tons of luggage strapped to his bike !
For the record since my journey back from the station was further than Phils I think this must mean that I actually cycled further than he did ;-)
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