I got back this weekend from a six-day journey down the Inverness to Edinburgh train line.  I stopped at every station, twenty-three in total, including my start and end points.  I tried to spend at least a couple of hours in each place, staying overnight where timetables dictated.  It was an interesting chance to see close up all those stops I would so frequently zip through on the train without really paying them any attention.

I didn’t know most of the places I visited, and so there were plenty surprises along the way as the journey took me to the unknown, the beautiful, the isolated, the depressingly mundane, and the run-down.  I’ve finished the trip with some places I am eager to return to for a deeper exploration, and a few others I’ll be quite happy to never visit again.  Along the way I encountered some interesting people, learned a great deal of local history, walked a colossal amount, visited a few dodgy pubs, randomly bumped into old friends, and took an over-abundance of photos.

In the coming weeks I am going to write the trip up, under the provisional title of “The Next Stop”.  Hopefully it’ll be a story of a journey not just along a railway line but through some often maligned and ignored places that lurk behind Scotland’s better-known side.

I’ll keep you posted.