Taking the Hogwarts Express

Hi everyone ... it's Phil writing the blog this week. I wanted to give Harriet plenty of time to study and prepare for a class presenation so I decided to take Parker and Harrison away for the weekend. This is the last week (Oct 8 - 12) for the West Highgland Railway steam train for 7 1/2 months until the end of May next year. Many of you Harry Potter fans will immediately recognize the photos below from the films and the magical steam train that takes students to and from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In this muggle world we live in, you can find the train and the famous Glenfinnan viaduct bridge the train goes over while travelling back and forth between Fort William and Mallaig in the north-west corner of Scotland.

This was a really fun activity for the family as we are big Harry Potter fans. During our two hour stop in Mallaig, we walked up to the top of a big hill, picked wild blackberries (called brambles here), did a little bit of shopping, mailed dad a birthday postcard, and I had the best fish and chips of my life. Mallaig's industry is heavily based on tourism and fishing so the fish was just about as fresh as you can get.