Victoria's Voyage

Today, there was no sign of rain, the perfect opportunity to take on the task of exploring the Nevis mountain range.

While you can’t climb up to Ben Nevis itself, you can take a cable car up one of its neighbouring peaks, and it is one hell of a trek – though well worth it. The journey up towards the clouds was fairly lengthy, but then you are travelling quite the distance, and the views are incredible before you even touch down on solid ground again. You can look ahead to the mountains and nearby lochs, or down at a pretty epic mountain biking trail.

There are a couple of doable walks up at the top, that aren’t too long or too demanding, but this is a good thing as the amount of stops you’re going to want to take for photo ops or picnics will really add time to the clock. The views are stunning all round, but what you can see over the edge of the righthand trail is indescribable. The photos really do not do it justice!

After our first walk left, we stopped for lunch at the cable car centre, sitting on a bench on a viewpoint overlooking the land below. Refreshed and rearing to go again, we then took on the other trail. Finally, we made our way back down, but we weren’t finished yet.

We took another walk, this time through the forests at the bottom of the mountain. It was kind of a drag after a while, as most of it looked exactly the same throughout, but that’s not to say the atmosphere wasn’t incredibly tranquil and that the area wasn’t pretty.

Bidding farewell to the range, we moved a short way back towards the nearby town of Fort William, stopping to see the Old Inverlochy Castle, a ruined stone building that looks as though it was shaped exactly like the typical castle-shaped sandcastle bucket. There’s not much there and it was just a five minute stop, but cool to see all the same.

Naturally, upon arrival back at the cottage we were all about ready to crash. Still, best to conserve our energy for tomorrow’s adventure!