Visiting Nessie and Neil

New friend

Touching the water on the shores of Loch Ness
and who should appear!

Clowning around

Conquering another castle, this one is Urqhart.

Jane points, 'Look, there is Nessie'

Cruising on Loch Ness

Clava Cairns, a 4,000-year-old bronze age
cemetery (with standing stones for
Outlander fans)

Culloden Viaduct

A Highland Coo!!!!!!
Had to jump a fence with
farmer Neil to get this close

Neil's tractor

A first for today this is the farthest point North on planet Earth I have been. Last night I left the blinds open just to see what happens, the sun sets after midnight and starts to rise about 2am, certainly a strange experience.

No trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to Nessie. Onto the shoreline of Loch Ness we go, and there she is! We have spotted her already. Let’s get on the boat for a better look, everywhere we sit on the boat Nessie seems to be there and lots of other tourists seem to be following us around we must be lucky Nessie spotters. 

Before we know it the boat has arrived at Urquhart Castle, the castle is situated on a prominent point on the loch and has a long and turbulent history ending with government troops garrisoned here during the Jacobite Risings blowing up the castle when they left. Off we go straight up to the top for the best views of the ruins, then across the moat and all around, now onto the tower, and look Nessie is there again. Our Nessie spotting seems to create a lot of happiness with all the other tourists eager to get a glimpse or photo of her. 

The day actually started out cloudy but now the sun is starting to shine and the loch looks different again on the boat trip back to Clansman Hotel. Time to exit through the gift shop and now some much-needed lunch, yes, lets do it. Lunch overlooking the picturesque loch basking in the sunshine.

Time waits for no man or tourist, so back into Big Bertha to battle the traffic in Inverness and onwards to Culloden Battle Fields. It seems weird to visit somewhere where so many died in battle, however, the visitor centre is impressive and tells us the story from the point of view of both sides. The battle experience room with an interactive reenactment makes it very real, sombre and sad, but enlightening to finally understand why the battle happened so far North.

Lots of funny things happened today including a tour guide in a kilt who sat down in front of us and spread his legs. Then quickly realised what he had done and pushed his kilt down to conceal the truth. Then he reached into his sporran and pulled out his mobile phone. 

The final mission for the day is to search for Highland Cows. Since day one, every postcard has them, we have been looking in fields and all we see are sheep and normal garden variety cows. Yesterday when having a wee chat to local he explained where to go. So with some daring we are now racing along one lane roads, around corners and up hills. At the top and what is this? A group of people at a fence! Looks promising, around the corner a tour bus. Think we might have struck gold, yes, there they are!

Snap, but only get their bums and they are covered in poo, the coo’s (Scottish word for cow) move along and the tour bus people run up the road and into people’s private property to take photos. Not sure about doing that. They are making a nuisance of themselves will they please leave. Eventually, they go and we decide to be daring and take the side passage for a closer look at the coo’s. After a while a man starts walking towards us, oh-oh are we going to get in trouble? Lovely cows we say, farmers says, yes girls, they are my cows. Lets get him talking and put on some charm. No need he is here to charm us! So a wee chat, turns into a long chat, a climb over the fence into the fields to get a closer look, a trip over to the shed to see the Angus coo’s, feed the coo’s to get better photos and then we even get to sit in Neil’s new tractor. Scottish people definitely are friendly!