(Originally shared with friends and family on September 17, 2025. A note about the format of this travel journal. I’ve shared the original dates in the body of each journal entry. In order to make the journal chronological, I had ‘fudge’ the dates of the bottom of each post. Please ignore them. Also, I adopted the Scottish use of military time throughout my entries). The above photo is of the rainbow we saw when we entered the beautiful Scottish Highlands. More photos can be found here.
17 September 0803, Orchybank House
I slept very well last night. Because we are in the country, when we shut off the lights in the room, it was completely pitch black. No ambient lights anywhere. The sky was cloudy, otherwise we would have gone outside to see the stars.
We’re having a very nice breakfast. Tara got the Full Scottish and I got poached eggs with hollandaise sauce on black pudding and spinach, on an English muffin. I’ll have to look up the name of what they called it. It is delicious. We’re sitting by the window with a view of the duck pond and ducks, and the bird feeders. It’s so nice to watch the birds come and go.
Today we will stravaig the area as we head towards Fort William. When I booked our stay here, and shared my itinerary on a Scottish Travel page, people said there wasn’t anything to do here. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to them because this area is beautiful. My only regret is that we only had one night.
1817, Ben Nevis Inn and Restaurant
Today was amazing! We certainly did plenty of stravaiging and didn’t t let the rain dampen our adventures. We stopped at almost every point I highlighted on my Google Map, and found a few more. The Highlands are so beautiful and we saw another rainbow.
The only negative about today is that Tara somehow managed to catch a cold! We’ll stop at the store after dinner so hopefully with medicine and a good nights sleep she’ll feel better soon
We are staying the next two nights at Torbeag House outside of Fort William. The home is beautiful and there is a great view of Ben Nevis. I’m sure we’ll be comfortable
2019, Torbeag House, outside Fort William
We are back at our room, in jams, and just relaxing and reviewing the day. Tara and I both took a lot of photographs, and I haven’t even looked at most of them, as I was trying to hurry up and capture the next beautiful scene.
My rock collection is growing. I found two heart rocks and several other interesting ones. No official Charlie rock, though (the heart rocks don’t count), but I’m sure I will find one.
Dinner was simple tonight. We both got the same thing: Smoked haddock, potato and leek soup, with Parmesan and Truffle Oil fries. Tara got a hard cider and I got Ginger Beer. For dessert, I ordered a raspberry chocolate thing to share but we received a peanut butter chocolate thing to share instead. Everything was delicious.
We got some medicine for Tara, a day and night cold and flu medication, and it cost less than two pounds. In the States it would have been about at least twelve bucks!
I’m glad we are relaxing this evening. Today was beautiful and I loved driving in the mountains, but it was very stressful for some reason. Not at all like driving in Ireland, but it should be the same. Maybe because I have a passenger? I’ve been having trouble getting into first gear for some reason. My old Tercel had the classic ‘H’ configuration for shifting gears, and the Nissan is different. Reverse is on the far right, next to first gear, but in order to put it in reverse, you have to pull up a ring to engage it. I think subconsciously I’m afraid of putting the gear in reverse accidentally instead of first, which isn’t even possible. As always, I am my own worst enemy.
Tomorrow we are sleeping in. Tomorrow afternoon is the Jacobite Steam Train with Afternoon Tea and I. CANT’T. WAIT! Not sure what we are going to do before then. I’m not sure what kind of shopping Fort William has but I would like to get something heavy, like a sweater or a hoodie. But if the weather is nice, it would be nice to hike before the train. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.
~K
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