A gorgeous garden, a canny pint and a Zizzi pizza.

Up in our new apartment, and off today for another train ride on our Spirit of Scotland rail passes, this one going west from Inverness on the train to the Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast near Skye. We chugged through amazing forested and mountainous country, so sparsely populated it did you good to look at it after the crowded landscapes of SE England.

 Eventually we got off at Strathcarron station, a one track affair. We had to let the train conductor know we were getting off there as a special request. Attadale gardens was just across the road. A gorgeous place, which being on the west side of Scotland benefits from the gulf stream. Beautiful plants and flowers. There was a self service cafe there called The Midge Bite. We mooched about for a couple of hours, and then wandered back to the station where we waved down the train to take us a couple of stops further on to Plockton. En route I was called by the dentist who were expecting me, despite having cancelled the appointment. 

We walked from the station down to Plockton, a very pretty little place, and found a little pub and sat outside in the sun, and had a pint of local beer, which the barman told me had been brewed by a guy in the town, a former merchant seaman who now brews four varieties of good beer.  Back to Plockton station, and hopped on the train, and after a couple of hours of going through gorgeous countryside we were back in Inverness. On the way home we stopped off at Zizzi Pizzeria for dinner. Then across the River Ness and home.

Below in the gardens, the view from the railway platform at Strathcarron and a snap from the train on the way home.