Holiday - 11/5-19/5/2018 - Introduction & Travel

Over the course of a week in mid May I took a holiday in Scotland. The hours spent working a menial job finally came together to mean something - thanks ASDA. I chose a touring group holiday -  considering I  didn't have the time to explore Scotland on my own, and I chose the company of Heatherlea to go with.The holiday was called Outer Hebrides In Spring, and was based in the Uist Islands in the Outer Hebrides.
Last year I booked a holiday with Heatherlea, based in the Cairngorms. It was called Eagles, Divers and Dotterels, and it delivered on that count as I saw all those species. We climbed into the Cairngorms, went over to Mull, and saw target Scottish birds in the area. You can check that out in my blog for that holiday - 7/22/17 - 7/24/17. So I decided to stay loyal and go with that company this time around, because I couldn't be bothered to check the other companies.
Its always a shot in the dark doing this kind of holiday, you don't really know who you're going to share a hliday with, and you don't really know what birds you'll see. So with those points in mind I set off on my holiday full of trepidation, taking the long step up to Scotland.

Travel
The difficult part - the travelling. Is everything going to work or will I be stuck in hell trying to find a route through late trains and cancellations.
I left home at 8 in the morning, caught the 9:09 train over to London Liverpool Street, took the tube to King's Cross, where I caught the 12 train to Aviemore. It all worked like clockwork, something I didn't really expect to happen, I mean things working on time in 21st century Britain, who would have thought?

 

King's Cross Station

 

Some of the problems with independent travel is you can't leave the luggage with someone while you get a coffee, no, you have to stay with them, and that probably means standing around as you wait for your train to arrive which can be tedious.

The train to Aviemore took seven and a half hours, and it really felt that long. Animal wise I saw a few HARES, some RED KITES, and as it became more rugged as we went further north some ROE DEER and a pair of GOOSANDER. Sights from the train included a distant Lindisfarne and the centre of Newcastle as the train travelled through.

After magazines, books, walking up and down the aisle, coffee, etc. I finally arrived into Aviemore, a small station in the Cairngorms. I took a taxi to the B&B in the Boat of Garten, called the Boat House. When I told the taxi driver I was a bird watcher, he replied 'Ah, a twitcher' and talked very enthusiastically about the local birds, if not with quite the expertise.

The B&B was nice and cosy, but I was knackered so went to bed early ready for tomorrow and for my holiday proper to start.

 

Here is a disclaimer: I don't write about people - I don't know how, so there won't be anything written about members of the holiday. Its all about the birds.