Loch Ness and The Ancestral Lands of Scotland.

Written 22^nd July 2012

The next morning we ventured up to the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition. That was quite interesting. It was a series of video rooms that were done up to look like different parts of the lake (like a theme park) and you watched a short movie in each room which gave you the facts about the Loch Ness Monster, like sightings, scientific evidence etc. It was an interesting exhibition which let you decide for yourself if the Loch Ness Monster is real or not.

After the exhibition centre we went for a walk down to the Loch

and then drove over to Urquhart Castle which is on the edge of the Loch overlooking the deepest part of the Loch which is 230 m deep! It is a lovely castle in an idillic spot. There was even a man playing the bagpipes there!

We left the castle and drove down the rest of Loch Ness to Fort Augustus where we looked at the locks there that join the Loch's to the canals and lets boats go up and down the different levels. It is a very interesting piece of engineering. Especially since it was built ages ago. (The start of the 1800's) The Caledonian Canal goes right across Scotland!

We had a terrible dinner there of the worst burgers ever. (They came with just a dry patty on a dry bun! I went back and asked for salad and got some sauce to make them edible!) Then we drove on to try and find a nice campsite. We found one eventually at the end of Loch Oich and spent a picturesque night there. It was very beautiful and best when there was a slight breeze to blow away the midgies. It was so cool, our tent was just a few metres form the loch!

In the morning we continued to drive down south. We were awed by the spectacular mountains. They stared at us from their great craggy heights as we drove through them, peering back through the mysterious fog they had wrapped around their shoulders. It was a stunning drive and made us want to go hiking. We had no gear good enough for the likes of those wild mountains though.

We drove on and on until we stopped for lunch in a little town called Stewarton.

Steve's family are Stewarts on his Mum's side and my family has Stewarts way back on my Dad's side. We next drove to Parton which is a place that my ancestors on my Dad's side used to own.

It was funny to think that my many great grandparents owned that land and probably planed those trees!

Next was on to Castle Douglas which is not a Castle as the name suggests but rather a town. We had another pub meal (hard to cook outdoors on a tiny cooker in the rain) and then found ourselves a lovely campsite which at first we thought might be someones driveway as the road had a rather grand entrance but led to several properties. So we set up camp and spent the night under the trees by a cow paddock across the way from the remains of a stone circle. Lovely! And the trees kept the rain off our tent too!

We ate yummy Flake mousse for pudding. Mmmmm.

In the morning we went to Threave Castle.

It was build by my many times great grandfather, Archibald the Grim. He was called Grim because he used to always have a body hanging from the top of his castle! The castle is on an island in the middle of a river. You walk about 800m from the car park

and then you must ring a little bell for the custodian to come and collect you on a boat and take you over to the island.

The castle is a tall rectangle and was good at withstanding sieges. It was a cool ruin as it was not just a shell but had the second floor still intact as well as the bottom one. More facts about threave castle...

We had more driving to do 

so we set off towards Dumfries where we stopped for a walk before hitting the road again. 

We drove to Gretna Green – the last town before the English border and had a little looksee where English people used to elope to; because in England you had to have the banns read before you could get married and so had to wait for that to happen (about 3 weeks I think).  In Scotland you could get married immediately.

Don't worry though, we didn't stop for a wedding without you.

We drove on to Manchester where were went to stay with Ash and Tahnee in their lovely apartment. We were pretty filthy after Wind Camping for so long so were ever so grateful for a shower! So nice to be clean! Then they took us to the Trafford Centre. It was awesome! Like a mall and Disneyland smooshed into one!

In the food court all the different food places are made to look as if they are really in that country. I would have loved a shopping spree there! But we only had time for tea. It was a delicious tea too. We had mexican and I had yummy nachos! Mmm! I was super dehydrated too and had 2 and a half cups of fizzy drink and then about 5 glasses of water when we got back to Ash and Tahnee's place until I'd topped my water levels back up :) We had an enjoyable night chatting away with Tahnee and Ash. (Thanks heaps again for having us guys!!!)

The next morning was pouring with rain so we did some washing and chilled with Ash for the morning before heading out into the worst traffic of our whole trip (except Marrakech melee but that didn't last as long!) We crawled our way down the county and we were supposed to go to see the biggest miniatures shop in England but the trip was supposed to take under 3 hours and it took us 5 to get to the turnoff and by that time it was closed! Poo! But we still had Sarah and Gerry in London to look forward to so we continued on through the traffic and rain until we finally (after some traffic boredom entertainment of steering wheel coin decoration by Steve) reached their house.