Inverness; Saturday, 03 May, 2014

I had to be up early to grab breakfast as I had an early train to catch from the station across the top of Scotland to Kyle of Lochalsh and across to Skye.

The train journey was stunning as the little train pootled its way through the mountains and along the side of lochs over to the West coast of Scotland and the nearest crossing point to Skye, Kyle of Lochalsh. At one time this was a bustling ferry port with the ferry across to Skye shuttling backwards and forwards, but with the opening of the Skye bridge the town has quietened down and had an almost deserted feel at midday on a Saturday.

After a brief wander around town I headed over to the bus stop to pick up the coach for the final leg of the journey over the bridge and up the Isle of Skye to its capital Portree.

I had five hours to look around Portree, but it soon became apparent that this was probably a couple of hours too many as it was clear there wasn’t much to see.

Having looked around the harbour, and gone for a walk through town I was still left with quite a bit of time to kill before the coach back, not much to do, and rapidly deteriorating weather.

In the end I found a very nice café near on the main square of town and settle down to a long period of drinking coffee and reading a book.

A little before 5:30 my coach back pulled in so I was able to dash from the café, through the downpour, to the coach and board.

I’d booked onto a coach that went all the way back to Inverness via a different route from the train which was, if anything, more stunning that the train ride over in the morning had been, with the road hugging the side of many more lochs before shooting up through the mountains and finally coming back down towards Loch Ness and the final leg back into the city.

It was amazing how tired you can become not doing very much. A three hour train ride in the morning, a four hour coach ride in the evening and most of the middle part of the day sitting down in a café and I was feeling absolutely shattered, so I grabbed some sandwiches from a supermarket near the bus station, had them for dinner and headed to bed.