It was pouring when I woke up this morning, so instead of heading out early per usual I decided to stick around as late as possible until the rain let up. Then I went over to the viaduct where the Jacobite steam train goes by, and although I wasn’t planning on being there that late for the train, I figured it wasn’t too long out so I waited. But despite being there on time the steam train never showed up (although a regular one did). Ah, well. I had planned to take the gondola up the Nevis mountain range, but with all the rain I had already lost half the day so I skipped it and drove through them instead, passing by Ben Nevis along the way. I made my way to Steall Falls through Glen Nevis, and like everything here what looked like it would be easy turned into a 30+ minute uphill mountain rock climbing experience. But I made it to the valley and the waterfall was huge and gorgeous. There was a path that would take you right to the base of the falls, but to get there you had to cross a single wire bridge with two other wires for balance. It had been raining, and people far thinner and fitter than I were having to go very very slowly to get across, so I opted out and decided I’ll just have to come back here later when I’m not quite so fluffy.
After climbing down the mountain back to my car, I doubled back through the mountains and got on the road to Glencoe. It was back to pouring again by the time I got to the most scenic and majestic spots, but dang was it still pretty. I continued south, stopping every couple miles to enjoy the view, and watched the sunset over the mountains at one of the pull offs. At the sunset pull off there was a very nice German lady that I gave my camera to for a picture. She wound up being all into it and wanted me to do a “jumping” pose, she was so funny I kept laughing through it. It took like 3 tries but we got it good enough. Then I drove very stressfully in the pitch black dark to Stirling where I stayed in a spa hotel for the night. I wish I had more time in the morning, I’d have loved to engage in the “spa” portion, but I headed for Stirling Castle in the morning, and then it’s off to Dublin!
