In search of Nessie

Saturday morning we were back in the car-driving on the left, of course-and headed north to chase monsters. Judging from our map, the Loch Ness and its famous inhabitant should be about 130 or so miles away, so we figured it would be a workable day trip. However, first on the agenda was to try again to find that geocache by the river. Having taken another look at the cache page I felt pretty certain I knew where it was, and so we drove back out to the airport. With Harry standing guard at the car, I took a brisk stroll back out to the beacon, found the cache (yay!), said goodbye to Builder Bob as I swapped out two travel bugs I was carrying for two different ones, and jumped back into the car just as it started to rain again. With that find, I've now logged geocaches in three different countries. Cool, eh? (Yeah, I know it's geeky... but it's fun.)

Hopping back on the road, we turned the car north toward what we thought would be the highway junction at Dumbarton. And it might have worked, except that we missed the turnoff and found ourselves headed west along the Firth of Clyde-and there were no other bridges nearby that would get us to where we needed to be. Fortunately we're used to stuff like that happening, and so we decided instead to see if we could find a ferry to a town called Dunoon, take highway 815 north to highway A83, and take that back to the highway we originally needed to be on.

Lesson #1 about highways in Scotland: they always do WAY more winding around than you realize when you look at a road map of the entire country, and that results in speeds far slower than what you'd experience on, say, I-395 in the middle of the California desert.

Oh well. At least the car ferry was fun, and using my long lens I was able to get some great pictures of the coastline. A 20-minute boat ride put us into Dunoon, and we drove around the Argyll Forest Park, stopping frequently to take pictures.








Once we hit highway A83-hours after we had originally planned to-we drove north around Loch Long, and then ambled north up A82 in the hopes of getting to Loch Ness before Nessie turned in for the evening. Sad to say, we searched and searched, but I didn't see her anywhere. I took a few pictures, though-some say she's actually easier to spot that way, and I've posted the results here for further inspection. Seems she's a friendly monster, and I also heard a tale that she actually follows the odd visitor around. I didn't notice anything of the sort, but you know how those legends are... maybe I'll be surprised.

Heading southeast now around an area known as Rob Roy Country, we were treated to some beautiful views of mountains and waterfalls. We drove through the tiny towns of Strathyre and Callander, and then stopped in Doune to visit the Doune castle. It's closed to visitors for the winter, but we were able to walk around the castle and the surrounding streams and take pictures. Along the way we passed several fly fishermen who were taking advantage of an evening hatch, and the setting couldn't have been more idyllic... it looked exactly like the pictures I've seen in fishing calendars. I would have liked to hike out a little farther, but the sun was beginning to set so we had to begin the journey back to Glasgow.

Arriving back at the hotel after stopping for dinner along the way, we had to shower and crash pretty quickly so we could catch a 7:00 flight the next morning back to Italy. It was kind of an exhausting pace, but I'm glad we came. Scotland is beautiful, and I'd love to return again someday. Even if Nessie really *is* just a mythical creature...

More from Italy,
Leanne