Glen Garry Knoydart Mallaig Rum Glen Nevis Glen Coe

Maps

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Slideshow

Inverie to Mallaig

Small Boat to Mallaig

On the morning of 2nd April, the weather was glorious. Everyone in Inverie seemed so happy that, had we not known what a severe winter they had been through, we might have thought that something had been tipped into the water supply.

We strolled around the coast, soaking up the sunshine.

In the afternoon, we found ourselves on the jetty with seemingly too many tourists to get on the small boat that was approaching. Someone shouted, "If you want to tour the loch before going to Mallaig please wait but if you want to go straight to Mallaig, there's a fellow here who will take six people." We rushed forward without hesitating to discuss the merits of the two boats. On the boat there was us four, a BT engineer and the skipper.

Mallaig

Mallaig was only intended to be an overnight destination. We had intended to sleep in a stationary railway sleeper car in the Glen Finnan Railway Museum but that turned out to be far too far away for backpackers without transport to get to, let alone to get back for a 7:30am boat to Rum. The tourist information pointed us to the Backpackers Lodge. We rushed over there and were told that there were only two beds available. Before we had a chance to freak out, they offered to put two of us up in the their tea rooms! Later on they declined to charge us for these two spaces because there were no curtains. We tried to argue with them but they insisted on putting us for free! As if that wasn't enough, they then let us use the tea room as a private lounge for the evening and stoked the stove to make it warm.

Ian received a text from Marc. He was in Mallaig with Yvette! Ian and Duncan went off to buy gloves for Ian - his fingerless gloves having proved inadequate. Afterwards they strolled around the coast and caught up with Marc and Yvette. The evening was spent in gay abandon in the Backpacker's lodge tea room, drinking wine and exchanging stories of adventures.