Today we were exploring Loch Ness and were on a mission to find the infamous Nessie. Our first stop brought us the southern most tip of Loch Ness in the village of Fort Augustus. Many of the lochs up near Inverness are actually connected by an extensive canal system and sailors could use this system to get from the North Sea all the way to Inverness through them. We stopped to look at the Caledonian Canal that is raised and lowered with 5 locks.
As we arrived we saw big tour cruising ship getting through the top lock but on their way up were 4 other boats. Kevin and I took turns checking things out as the kids had fallen asleep in the car. We both were reminiscing our boating days, but I had flashbacks of going up and down the locks of the Mississippi River in the Star-rat with Brad Geater...whoa, where had time gone?
Did we really find Nessie on our first stop? Nope, but we must be getting closer.
We made our way up the west side of Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle. I'm not versed very well in Scottish history (not the best in English history either), but from what I gathered was that this castle originated in the 6th century but written records talk more about it in the 12th century (that's like 600 years of being there but not much to know about it). It had been taken over several times by royals then by dominating families in Scotland. It's now in ruins because apparently the Williamites blew it up because they didn't want the Jacobites to take it over. Scotland seems to be full of stories of feuding families...
We found a trebuchet, but it's just a bit smaller than the one at our favorite Warwick Castle.
Even in it's ruins this castle commands attention on Loch Ness. We stopped at the castle to get a good look at it as the boat tour we planned to take would give us a loch view of the ruins from the water, but from the top of this hill it was pretty amazing.
It was amazing how tranquil this place felt, except for the maintenance workers running multiple weed wackers all at the same time. Have any of you ever seen an entire lawn cut with weed wackers instead on lawn mowers??? Well they aren't a very soothing sound when your children are fussing and not cooperating with your site seeing....rattles your nerves and must have scared Nessie away because we didn't see her there either.
We made our way to Drumnadrochit which is the essentially the center of the Loch Ness legends with Nessie. Now I totally expected this whole area and stretches of roads to have huge signs saying "Find Nessie Here" but really it was very low key and not overly commercialized. There are two different "Nessie" centres in the village, with the second one down the road being the much better exhibit. We just used this stop as one to get ourselves a little lunch at the cafe...we were off to actually get out on the water to find Nessie in a loch boat tour.
We got a surprise though. We really thought we found her this time as we saw this amazing creature in a pond next to "The Nessie Experience", but again just a well done replica of the glorious beast in a small pond.
Just down the road from Dramnadrochit we found the docking point for the Jacobite Boat Tours. We hopped aboard the Jacobite Legend for our Loch Ness experience. Funny thing was that we ended up sitting next to a couple from a village just outside of Huntington that happens to be the home of Jamie Oliver's parents thriving pub. Apparently it was the place he got started with his passion of cooking, but the pub was famous before he became famous and has been thriving for over 35 years! Again another small world experience out in the middle of Loch Ness, Scotland.
The boat ride was quiet and peaceful with a recorded commentary that gave some history on the area and the legend of Nessie and the peoples of the area. They also explained that the only real commercialization of the area came to the western side of the Loch as that is where they decided to build the main road. Now with a few more houses and villages dotting the shore line the it still doesn't look that busy but the eastern side is almost complete as it was years and years ago.
The water was amazingly still and Kevin wanted to hop out and go water skiing so bad, but that triggered us to wonder why there weren't any boats out on the water....except for us. You would think for such a famous place for outdoors sports that boats would be zipping around all over but you dare not find any of the locals out doing that. Apparently it is taboo for them to be out on really any type of motorized boat on the water...one would get looked down upon. It was actually really nice though to just enjoy the loch as it was and uninterrupted.
Here we are back at the Urquhart Castle for our loch view.
Now Addison claims to have actually seen Nessie while out on our cruise, but the rest of us apparently missed her...oh darn. Guess Nessie wasn't meant to be found by the Dea's today. We did find yet another statue of Nessie that was a little more life sized so we got up close and person with her for a nice memorable picture.
We stayed in a nice B&B just off the canal in Inverness. The kids were itching for a play so we found a local park just down the canal for them to burn off some energy. It is kind nice to have to find such places because we then feel more local that outsiders as our kids play with neighborhood children. Funny thing was that I was so tired that I only got ONE picture of Inverness from the suspension bridge that we crossed to get to the park, so here it is.
We found a Bella Italia to eat dinner at which hit the spot. They were amazing with the kids and gave them fun little packets to play with and treated them very special. In all honesty I though Inverness would be more touristy with its proximity to Loch Ness but it was just a normal beautiful clean city that actually looked like a nice place to live.
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