The taxi driver was right on time at the hotel, and I was in plenty of time at Inverness station to catch the 7:55 GNER line to King's Cross in London. There was a significant stop in Edinburgh, but aside from that, it was a continuous ride.
There's quite a variety of scenery between the Scottish highlands and London. The closer to London you get, of course, the more densely built, including several large industrial cities -- especially York, Doncaster and Petersborough.
Not much to write about, it was a fairly dull trip inside the train, all the interesting stuff was on the other side of the windows.
Once at King's Cross station, it was a matter of figuring out the maze of the surface rail-to-tube route because the next leg on the way to cousin Brian & Viv's house in Bourne End was the tube to Paddington station. The train arrived at King's Cross at about 4 pm, and didn't have to wait long once I found the right entryway. I got turned around a couple of times because the signs were a little ambiguous about where they were pointing.
It only took an hour to get to Paddington, and thanks to it being rush hour on a Friday, there was an extra train to Bourne End, so I didn't have to change in Madenhead as expected.
The last bit of the ride is on the FGW line, and is very pretty especially going over the river to the Bourne End station, where Brian and Viv were waiting for me.
We drove to their house, where we joined Brian's father Harold, who lives with them. They set me up in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and we had a nice chat and eventually went to dinner, though Harold declined our invitation to join us. We walked into town to a Thai place which turned out to be more Chinese than Thai, but it was lovely nevertheless. On our walk back we were rained on slightly.
Return to Howeird's Home Page
