Going to the Track (Railroad Track, That Is)

Yesterday Don and Gordon didn't play golf as they usually do on a Sunday and so we planned a picnic. The question was, where would we take our picnic? Don suggested Rannoch Moor and I immediately latched onto the idea of going all the way out to Rannoch Station, a railroad stop in the middle of nowhere. As you can see from this map, the road to the station dead-ends at the train tracks. Beyond is moorland and rugged mountains, peat bogs, mires, and wilderness. If you find Crianlarich on left side of the map and then Perth on the right Comrie is about halway between the two. Our route took us through the Sma' Glen to Aberfeldy.

We took the rugged Glen Quaich road which traverses beautiful scenery. It is the "short cut" to the town of Kenmore which sits on Loch Tay, but the road is a narrow single track with passing places, which is why I put "short cut" in quotes.

Once we had driven through the good-sized town of Aberfeldy, we traveled on roads that mostly had room--just--for a lane in each direction. This road, however, is very curvy and goes up and down hills so that keeps the speed down. One of the treats of the day was seeing the heather in full bloom. The first photo above, taken at Tummel Bridge on the way to Rannoch Moor, shows the River Tummel rocketing along. Off in the distance you see hills, including lower ones that are purple with blooming heather. (Remember, if you click on the photo, you can get a larger view.) The second photo above shows the first stop we made. This is Loch Rannoch where an inlet forms a small beach. I wish I could tell you that this is where we ate our picnic lunch but it isn't. We ate our picnic further along the loch at a roadside stop that had a sign indicating that there were picnic tables. Alas, it was windy and cool when we stopped because the clouds had come between us and the sun and so we had only eaten a couple of bites out of our sandwiches before we retreated to the car to finish our lunch.

After lunch we drove on to Rannoch Station at the end of the road. Trains from Glasgow or Edinburgh to Ft. William stop briefly at Rannoch Station. Some of the trains go on to Mallaig across from the Isle of Skye. We were lucky enough to be at the station when the train came so I could get a photo of it departing Rannoch Station for Ft. William. You can get an idea from this photo of the desolate but beautiful area the train must travel through on its journey.

At the station is a museum about the building of and early riders on the railroad, the land surrounding the station, and the floa and fauna to be found in the area. There also is a tearoom where we stopped for refreshments before getting on the road for home. All in all we were away from home for over 6 hours but it was a lovely day out.