Scotland - Loch Ness

A quick note. You CANNOT see all of Scotland in 3 days. For comparison, here’s what we tried to do in Pacific Northwest terms.

- Take a train from North Vancouver BC to Seattle on Friday.
- See ALL of downtown Seattle on Friday by foot.
- Take a bus at 8am to Lake Chelan Saturday morning and come back that evening.
- Take a 9am bus to Tacoma Sunday morning to transfer to another bus and see a distillery in Enumclaw. Return in time to take a 6pm train back to North Vancouver.

So the great Loch Ness adventure was 5 hours up through the Highlands, 2 hours around the Loch and 5 hours back through the other side of the Highlands. Yeah – too much bus for one day.

Quick story that we learned – Way back in time there were the McDonaldand Campbell clans. As you can tell if you check out the pics, the Highlands are quite rugged, so there’s been this thousand year old tradition called Highland Hospitality. It basically says that if anyone traveling needs help or a place to stay, all they have to do is knock on a door and the owners are obligated to take care of them with a drink, food, place to stay, whatever.

So the King of England (I think) hires all these guys from the Campbell family to go collect taxes from the Scots, but not tell anyone they were Campbells. The Campbells and McDOnalds never got along anyway, but the McDonalds extended their “Highlands Hospitality” and let them stay there for weeks. Then in the middle of one night, a signal was given and the Campbells hired by the King started murdering all of the McDonalds. Bastards.

Then, a few years ago, an American guy named Campbell was vacationing in Scotland and stops at a hotel owned by a McDonald. The American guy didn’t know anything about the past history, but the McDonald wouldn’t let him stay in the hotel when he saw what his name was. So apparently the clans still resent each other.

Back to Loch Ness…

There’s no question this is a tourist trap, but the guy who owns the boat and takes you on tours of the lake (for 7 pounds – another bloody rip off) REALLY believes in this thing. He swears to have seen it about 8 times. His boat is all decked out with sonar and radar stuff. Though, it’s not like he has a giant net or spear gun on the boat, so I’m not sure what he plans on doing if it does saddle up next to him one day. I guess just wave and take some pictures.

Can’t really tell too many more stories about Loch Ness, but the Highlands are beautiful so if you go up there, make sure to spend a quiet night in Inverness or up on the islands off the Northern Coast. Or another thing to do is cruise from Loch Ness to Aberdeen because there are about 123 distilleries it’s basically the Napa Valley of Whiskey – which would make for a fun day.