Hiking in Scotland, Part 1

September 2008

My youngest son, Jon, and I spent a couple of nights in Drumnadrochit (DRUM-na-drocket), which is a tiny village on Loch Ness. There's not much there - just a couple of small cafes and hotels, several pubs (of course!), The Loch Ness Monster Exhibition, and a replica of Urquhart Castle ... made out of succulents, see picture, right. (Ya can't make this kind of stuff up, y,know??)

We were staying at the somewhat more humble Loch Ness Backpackers Lodge. But, since it was already mid-September, it wasn't crowded and we got our own dorm room.

Of course, we couldn't be that close to the famous loch and not actually SEE it. But in order get to there, we had to hike through the woods, following a path that started out well-marked and then sort-of disintegrated into nothing. We ran into that problem a lot in Scotland… We walked over small streams on logs but finally realized there was no way to get around fording a wide stream on foot. So off came the shoes and into the water we went. Two things became immediately clear: the water was COLD and the rocks were SHARP. It literally was months before the sore spot on the arch of my right foot stopped hurting. But what really made it tense was the fact that I was very much aware that - if I fell (not unlikely in the circumstances) - not only would I risk getting very wet and cold, I could kiss my camera goodbye.

The Loch itself was sort of … a lake. Okay, a *big* lake. Sadly, if Nessie was there, she didn't bother showing herself to us. But of course, we had to take pictures looking like we'd seen her!

We didn't want to go back the way we came and have to wade in the water again so we kept pressing on. Jon – with a superior sense of direction got us out through someone's field.

As we were - finally! - walking along a path back toward the main road, we ran into two Japanese girls we'd met the day before at the Strathisla Distillery (where they make Chivas Regal whisky). We had been the only four people on the tour and, let's face it, whisky makes friends! In addition, since Jon speaks Japanese, he was able to do some translating for them. (I didn't bother to ask why he knew the Japanese word for whisky!)


Meeting them was really weird since we were now MILES away in yet another tiny town and walking down a side road. We exclaimed over the coincidence and took pictures. As you do… Things like this are part of what make traveling such fun!