We were woken from a dead sleep at 2:30 in the morning by the fire alarm in our building. Not a nice way to wake up let me tell you! We were scrambling to get dressed when it suddenly stopped. Stu went out into the hallway to find the night desk young man speaking with another guest a door or two down from us. He apparently burnt toast!! The alarms went off and that burnt toast smell permeated the floor. Not a great smell. It seems the guest had returned to the hostel after an evening out and decided to have a little snack. Not sure how he managed to burn the toast as the toaster in our room seemed to be the popup variety. Since our adrenaline was running it took us quite a while to fall back to sleep. I guess it could have been worse, it could have been a real fire.

After packing and checking out we walk to the corner to wait for the 22 bus that will take us to Waverly Train Station. When the bus arrives it is crowded with people, so we manage to squeeze in with our bags for the 10 minute ride. Stu goes off looking for coffee while I watch the bags. We are watching the departure board for our train and platform. The train appears, but the platform number does not. All the other trains have a platform, except ours. We decide to head out to the platforms as our departure time is nearing.

A few minutes before departure the platform is announced and we are able to board the train. We have reserved seats so we are on the hunt for them. There are lots of people with bags, but not much room to put them. We managed to find some spots to put the big bags and then our seats which were right next to them. We have two seats across from each other with a table. No one comes to sit in the other 2 seats so we move to the window side.  We order coffee from the train attendant.  It comes with these little tubes of milk.

We arrive at the Inverness Train Station.  We call our B&B to ask which is the best way to get to them.  The fellow tells me that they are about 300 meters away and will pick us up in about 5 minutes.  We should go the WH Smith Book store in the station.  OK, that sounds easy, we can do that.  🙂

Not too long after a woman approaches us and says ” you must be either Pat Salmon or (some other name I can’t remember).  I say yes “Pat Salmon”.  We follow her to where her husband is staying with the car.  They were out grocery shopping, so we pile our bags into the car, Richard takes us to the B&B, gives us the low down on the area. He then leaves to pick up his wife who continued shopping after we left her at the Train station.  These are some photos of our new home for the next 3 nights.  It is very cool, built in 1870.  We are paying 90 £ or $145 CAD for this, it  includes a full breakfast.

It is now after 2:45 and we are starving!!!  We walk down the street to our new “local”, The Corriegarth.  We share an order of fish and chips.  Either they are AMAZING or we were STARVING!!  We gobbled up every bit.

We head out to explore the city.  It is chillier here than it was in Edinburgh.  We are glad we have packed warm clothes.  We have some interesting photos of the city.

We have booked an Outlander Tour for Sunday which includes the Culloden Battlefield.   It was the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and part of a religious civil war in Britain.  Off to follow Claire and Jamie :)!!

Tomorrow we plan to do the Hop On Hop Off bus of Inverness.

More adventures to come!