Loch Ness
Our Great British Adventure
May 4, 2018Today we circumnavigated Loch Ness. We started in Drumnadrochit which had a very good exhibition which walks you through a series of rooms with short videos about the history of the loch and the search for Nessie. It was scientific and sceptical but was also respectful of believers. Quite impressive.
Next stop was Urquhart Castle which was very busy with tourists so we just took some external photos and moved on.
Lunch was at Fort Augustus. It joins the loch to the Caledonian Canal with a series of large locks. As we arrived two yachts were leaving the bottom lock and four vessels were waiting to enter and head up. It's a really interesting (albeit very slow!) process to watch and there were lots of bystanders doing just that. It took me back to childhood memories of holidays in houseboats on the Murray. Eventually we had lunch at a cafe next to the bottom lock.
That was the southernmost point of Loch Ness so we headed up the B road on the east side. We stopped at the Falls of Foyer and walked down to the top and middle lookouts. I struggled with the 300m climb back up (about 100m vertical) and we paused for a rest at the cafe across the road. There were two roads up the east side: one high through high lakes and spectacular views, and the low one along the loch edge which was the one the Falls of Foyer put us on.
We thought we'd have to go into Inverness to get back to our road south but we found a new section of road that was a substantial shortcut. That was nice as the weather was closing in and home was looking cozy.