Sleeper train to Inverness

[Foxton20]

Just booked a sleeper train to go Inverness for the weekend In February with 3 children.

Booked a trip for the Saturday morning.

What else can we do? Where to eat?

So nervous 🙈

Skye is 2 hrs 30 mins drive from Inverness. My children would hate that.

Mine really loved visiting Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness, Culloden Visitor Centre and the Inverness museum. There was live music in one of the pubs we went for dinner which they liked too.

Are you on one of the refitted trains?

The sleepers are not refitted trains they are all brand new and were introduced over the course of 2019.

The new sleeper coaches have an en suite loo with a shower thing above it

Only if you book an en suite...

The journey has improved a lot since the change in rolling stock, it's not the juddery squeaky night it used to be. Don't use the sink, get somewhere for a wash and teeth clean when you get off the train and you will be fine!!

I think Skye is too far for a day when you have come up on an overnight train. It's adding so much travel onto a long journey as it is, you sleep on the train but not as sound as you would at home or even in a hotel so I wouldn't want to be doing t a long drive after that.

We’ve decided (wel Dh has as he’s the driver lol) to hire a decent car and we are going to Isle of Skye 🙈so any ideas what to do there? We are doing that on the Saturday and the boat trip/castle on the Sunday.

We have booked rooms with toilets.

You are quite mad. That’s like visiting London for the weekend and driving to Nottingham for lunch for something to do.

So you are getting off the sleeper, picking up a hire car and doing a 6 or 7 hour drive ??? With three kids who won’t have slept properly, eaten a decent breakfast or had a shower.

That sounds fun.

It could easily be 5.5 hours round trip just to get to the bridge and that’s assuming good weather and driving conditions. Well at least you won’t have to worry about what to do on the island - you will hardly have time to do anything except buy a sandwich in the co-op in Portree, turn around and drive back to Inverness.

There’s only 9 hours of daylight and you are going to be spending most of them in a car.

Seriously this is a really silly plan.

If you go to the Black Isle early ish in the morning you should see dolphins, we have managed to see them every time we visit

The fairy pools on the Isle of Skye are amazing but it might be a bit to far.

Aviemore is well worth a visit and only an hour away from Inverness, drive up then hop on the train to the top, the view is unbelievable! There are lots of parks and a fair few shops too, they also have a great go ape type thing for the older ones. You can also do a walk with the reindeer.

How many full days do you have?

Isle of Skye would be a very long full day to make the most of it, I would choose Aviemore over the Isle of Skye purely as you won't have enough time to do it justice.

The Black Isle would only need to be an hour or so in the morning (take a flask for a hot drink 😉), you could then wander around Inverness for the day and visit the swimming pool.

Fort George is so stunning but is quite a drive, the bridge is pretty cool. It's the very end of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness itself doesn't do it for me, but the children might like the Nessy stories, castle Urquart is expensive and can get busy.

The pics below are Fort George!

Either way you will have a fab time

We are happy to do it, it’s a once in a lifetime thing for us because of how much it’s costing. Plus i don’t think it’s just going to Isle of Skye, I think the drive and views are part of it. The kids sleep like logs, and we have showers etc in our room on the train. We regularly travel 3 hours fo Yorkshire for a day out. Our train gets in at 8am. We have no rush to get back so I don’t see the problem?

We have two full days, our train is on Monday.

What sort of things do you like doing? You could go round the Sleat peninsula - the views of the Cuillins from the Tarskavaig Road are amazing. There are a few ruined castles here (Dun Sgathaich - mentioned in the old Irish takes off Cù Chula inn, Armadale - which has a visitor centre, and Knock - next to our newest distillery).

If you like walking I recommend the Leitir Fura loop - it goes to an abandoned village and there are, again, some stunning views en route.

You could always aim in this direction and not get here. As others have mentioned there are visitor centres at Drum, and Urquhart Castle and Eilean Donan Castle on the way.

(Of course, the weather might be rubbish in which case you won't get the views. But it varies, two years ago friends here were bbqing one weekend in Feb and sledging the next, you just never know!)

A lot of the boats have sonar for the kids to look for Nessie which is fun!

It’s been a few years but the Dores Inn is a lovely little pub which does food with a nice view. There’s a chap who hangs around there selling Nessie models, he’s devoted his life to looking for her. This is the village where they hold Rock Ness.

The Mustard Seed by the river used to do really nice reasonably priced early evening menu.

That would be like me getting the sleeper from Inverness to London to get in a car and drive 3 hours to Swanage, have lunch then drive back in the dark. Inverness is a city, not as big as London but has plenty to do to fill 3/4 days easily.

You could go to Loch Ness, Fort Augustus, Findhorn, Fort George, Culloden, see the dolphins, visit a distillery.

Skye is fantastic but you are not even going to scratch the surface in a couple of hours. Please also make sure you check the weather. The road from Inverness to Skye can be challenging at the best of times never mind in the dark with snow, fog etc.

If you hire a car and drive to Aviemore area, the Landmark Forest Park is great. It's good roads so not a bad drive. Lovely scenery.

Landmark isn’t open in February.

It’s very ambitious to head to Skye for a day trip. It’s quite a long way from Inverness and in itself is a pretty big island. The days are pretty short too early in the year.

When I took that trip on the sleeper train, the dining car was unexpectedly closed. Not sure how often that happens, but I'd suggest a back up plan if you were relying on it for dinner.

Also there can be a lot of deer on the road from Skye to Inverness at this time of year. If you do decide to go there on a day trip your journey back will be in the dark and I must warn you that I’ve had some pretty hairy drives along part of your route in February at night. The road is dark and if it’s cold the deer come down from the hills and wander onto the road. They are large but also very difficult to see. It can make the drive quite scary and slow.

I live up there and I’m not sure I’d do the drive to Skye and back after a sleeper train either. There is so much to do around Inverness tbh. I’d choose aviemore over Skye on such a short trip particularly as in February you have no idea what the weather will be doing.

Someone mentioned aviemore and hopping on a train to the top I’m guessing they mean the funicular at the Cairngorm but that’s shut for the foreseeable future but there might still be snow in the area so aviemore would be cool for some sledging and the reindeer centre is nice with guided walks out into the fields to see the deer.

The Royal Highland Hotel at the station would be a good place to go for breakfast when you arrive. You’ll get a really good, hearty Scottish breakfast to set you up for the day. It might be a good idea to ring them to check if you have to book; we didn’t but that was a few years ago.

I think it would be good to have alternative plans or contingency plans depending on the weather. One year on arriving, there was 5 inches of snow on the ground. I think your trip to Skye would make more sense if you were staying there overnight though.

No advice but I would love to do this, could you please please please come back from your holiday and let us know how you got on. Its one I'd like to do in future years.

Bookmarking page.

Thank you.