Hunting Nessie

With the weekend almost upon us, the first task of the day was to organise the laundry so we had clean clothes to go to Paris with on Monday. After dropping our laundry off, we went for a walk along the River Ness for a while before crossing over and coming back to explore the shops. While Inverness is a nice city, there isn't a lot at its heart to occupy tourists. Its most eye catching feature is Inverness Castle...but it is used for the Courts and isn't open to tourists.

The River Ness and the west side of Inverness

Inverness Castle

Looking down the River Ness

Once we had seen all there was to see in Inverness, we picked up our car from the B&B and went for a drive...hunting Nessie. Keeping an eye open for the Loch Ness monster, we drove along the east side of the loch. Towards the top of the loch we came to Foyers and the Waterfall of Smoke...so named because of the smoke-like appearance of the spray and mist it once generated before the river was dammed for hydro-electricity. But every cloud has a silver lining...or to be more precise, the benefit of all the terrible weather from the tail end of Hurricane Bertha was that the River Foyers was running fast and full and the waterfall was just like it was in the days of old.

Looking up Loch Ness

The Waterfall of Smoke in all its glory

It's just a bit wet standing here...

That's not smoke...it's just the waterfall

After getting soaked by the spray from the waterfall, we had lunch at the nearby cafe and then picked up our hunt for Nessie again. Before long we came to the head of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus where the Caledonian Canal from Fort William and the Rivers Oich and Tarff all flow into the loch. On the road between Fort William and Inverness, the town was clearly a favourite spot for tourists...with half a dozen tour buses stopped there and about 20 times that number of cars, there were people everywhere. Still, we managed to park near the edge of the town so we stopped and walked in.

The Caledonian Canal connects into Loch Ness by a series of locks and while we were there, we watched as a couple of boats were brought up through the locks into the canal. It was an interesting...but slow...process to watch that began with the main road closed to allow the swing bridge to be opened. When we had had our fill of watching locks get filled, we returned to our car to pick up our hunt for Nessie again...this time along the west side. Despite our best efforts, we didn't spot her...but we had a great day out anyway.

Opening the swing bridge

Two boats waiting for the lock gates to close behind them

Same boats...same lock...now full

Looking for Nessie on the way back to Inverness