Stirling and our Loch Ness surprise!

We stayed at the Willy Wallace hostel in Stirling. The castle at Stirling was fantastic, probably the best presented one I have seen, with its newly restored Great Hall, moody music and lively kitchen diorama. After Stirling we made for the town of Luss by the voluminous Loch Lomond. This picture was taken by the shores of the loch (below).




We made it to Oban, home of the famous distillery, just in time to the miss the last tour of the day. Disappointed but not defeated, we made the most of our time in this little coastal town. We checked out some tourist shops, had a Chinese dinner and retired to our hostel early. Apart from undertaking a few repairs (my bed had a large hole in it), we had a quiet evening watching a movie (Ice Age, if you must know), and a short dram of whisky before tucking in for the night.

The night in Oban was cold but our spirits were warmed next day as we took breakfast in the cosy hostel kitchen. We feasted on home-made scones then set off for the Isle of Skye. We drove through impressive Glen Coe after stopping at Fort Augustus for morning tea, where we saw a couple of interesting things: a long barge driving upstream through a multiple chamber lock, and a jet plane roaring at low altitude overhead. But, that was not all we saw…




Shortly after this picture was taken near Fort Augustus (above), a patch of water near where we were standing began to bubble and there was a sound of gushing air. Before we had a chance to point and shoot the creature – with our cameras – the hideous leviathan turned its long slimy neck and dived back into the murky depths of Loch Ness, probably not to be seen again. All we could capture was the final flick of its tail (below). Shortly afterwards, Weisie fainted.




We had all been keen to sight the infamous and elusive beast, none more so than Techno Tony who invested in a Nessie Locating Sonar Device (Mk II), which he got with the GPS tracking option and 3-way radio (pictured here). Alas, Tony was not able to capture the monster on video, in spite of hanging back on at least one occasion and throwing rocks into the water to spur the monster into action. He did return with one dubious photo that might have been Nessie (finger inserted for perspective: here).

After all the excitement of Loch Ness, we were happy to come across picturesque Eilean Donan Castle, where we paused in the parking lot for a sandwich. Even on a bleak rainy day, the castle was quite a sight (below).