By Sleeper to the Highlands

There is, in my opinion, only one way to travel from England to the Scottish Highlands, and that is by overnight sleeper from London.

The train, which has three parts, for Inverness, Aberdeen and Fort William, leaves Euston at 9.15pm, giving one plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely meal before boarding. At Edinburgh, in the early hours of the morning, the three sections separate, and one wakes to a view such as the one above, looking across a loch to the Cairngorms.

For the journey into the Highlands the train is hauled by a rather ancient diesel loco belonging to a company called English, Welsh & Scottish Railways.

We have been travelling by sleeper for years, mainly on the Fort William to London route - picture shows us leaving Fort William in the summer of 2007 on an educational trip to Italy and Greece -  and it has long been a family tradition, before departure, to walk to the front to inspect the locomotive.

Once in the Highlands there are some superb onward connections. Scotrail-operated trains traverse some of Britain's most spectacular countryside. This is the Inverness to Wick service on the Far North line, a two-coach train which takes four and a half hours to make the journey.