Freelance Tour Manager for Rail Based vacations around the world
It happened again. I picked up another Tour, (this time only 24hrs notice) to Scotland. The Tour Manager had to go to hospital (Get better soon Lucy) and I got the “Please Help” phone call. The Tour was for Great Rail Journeys - Highland Adventure. Because of the short notice I had to do a …
I'm back home now and I have 3 days to prep for the Sicily Tour. I just realised that I never finished off the Shetland/Orkney. The problem was that the last day was a travel day and the Caledonian Sleeper WiFi wasn't working. What I'm going to do is just put up a couple of …
Yesterday we visited Jarlshof a world heritage site in the Shetlands where there are the remains of settlement buildings from the stone age, iron age, bronze age, viking period and 16th century, all layered under and over each other. Four thousand years of history in one place. From there we moved on to the lighthouse …
The sun came out… unexpectedly. We were treated with lovely morning Shetland sunshine and a strong blustery wind, which is pretty normal Shetland weather. Scalloway, the old Shetland capital before Lerwick was the base for the Shetland Bus during World War II. The Shetland Bus missions ran between Shetland and Nazi-occupied Norway, running in SOE …
So… off we go to Aberdeen on the Caledonian Sleeper train, leaving London Euston at 21:00 and arriving at 07:40. We left and arrived on time. This was my home for the journey. It’s tight, but just about manageable for two people. For one, no problem. I was asleep by 23:00 and slept through to …
Well, it's happened again. Sadly one of my colleagues has become unable to operate a Tour at short notice and so I'm off to cover for them. This time I've had about 2½ days notice so I have had to work rather fast to get the prep done. It was made much easier by the …
Continue reading "Shetland Isles and how to sleep on a Night Sleeper Train"
Yesterday we visited Fort George, near Inverness. It’s the home base of 3rd Battalion ‘Black Watch’ who have just arrived back from a Tour in Afghanistan. We thank them for their service. The morning was spent with the Strathspey railway, and our last steam of the Tour. The Aviemore scenery looked beautiful. I’m writing this …
Travel Day today. We started with a short ride to Stromness to pick up the Ferry to Scrabster (population: approx 6) Goodbye Orkney On the Ferry we passed close to the Old Man of Hoy, captured here by one of our clients (Thanks to John Williams). Copyright: John Williams Next, John O’ Groats for the …
The Orkneys are the site of the finest Neolithic archeological diggings in Western Europe, and they can be found at The Ness of Brodgar, a thin strip of land, in the West Mainland of Orkney, that separates the lochs of Harray and Stenness. We explored the Standing Stones of Stennes, the Ring of Brodgar and …
Excitingly, I’m writing this on a boat. Or should it be ship. Or maybe just, Ferry. I’m not too strong on things nautical. Boats make me slightly nervous. They sink. Also, the ones in Aberdeen harbour, which service the oil industry look a bit odd and have some very strange names… That said, this is …
TimOnTheTrain 