Day 7 - Monday 6/1/15 – Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness, Highland Coos

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

Another rainy start to our day.  It appears that 7:30 is our new normal wake-up time.  This gives us time to shower and dress before heading down for breakfast.  It is strange having everyone seated at the same time, but this is how the owners like it. We were given our standard Scottish breakfast minus the canned baked beans:  an egg, bacon (really dried out thin ham slices), sausage, mushrooms, broiled tomato half, and a potato triangle.  I had some cereal to start and didn't eat my bacon.  Toast is served on a toast rack which guarantees that it is not warm when it reached the table.

We headed out for Urquhart Castle about 10.  Our first stop was at the edge of Fort William to see the old Inverlochy Castle ruins.  The sun was peeking out by this time and the rain was barely a mist.  We did luck out in that we noticed the train bridge over the river in front of the ruins and figured that the 10:15 Jacobite steam train would soon be appearing.  This is the Hogwarts Express that we are taking tomorrow.  It was a neat viewpoint to see and photograph the train.  A bonus!!

We headed on out with our next stop at the commando's Memorial to WWII just outside Spey Bridge.  I had seen it doing my research, and I didn't think it would be much.  It was just a statue of 3 men, but the views of the snow-capped mountains from there was truly beautiful.  The memorial area was quite crowded, mostly with older folks.  It was worth the stop.

Our next stop which we overshot and had to turn around and go back was the Bridge of Oich built in 1854 by James Dredge.  The design was apparently an innovative one, but it was a nice Kodak moment.

We made it to Urquhart Castle (which is in semi-decent ruined state).  I wanted to come here because it had glorious views of Loch Ness.  We sat through an 8 minute movie and then went to the small buffet/cafe to grab a bite for lunch.  Good move on our part.

We sat outside overlooking the grounds and the castle.  We shared soup and a sandwich.  The soup was a leek/potato soup which was a large bowl and really excellent.  The sandwich was pre made and wrapped, so I wasn't expecting much.  Wrong!!  It was a cheddar/chutney on some beautiful seeded brown bread.  What a great lunch - good food, great view!

Bill wandered around the castle while I chatted with a grounds keeper.  The other yellow bush we have seen everywhere is called gorse.  It is a thorny bush with a bright yellow flower that blooms everywhere all year.  I did go through into the castle and get some more great photos of Loch Ness.  Lovely day with more sun that we had even hoped for!  I did find some wonderful Christmas ornaments for all the nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews.  And one for me!!!  A Highland cow on the front and tartan on the back.

On the drive back to Fort William I spied some Highland Cows in Invermoriston.  I called it and spotted a parking lot right there, so I got my first photos of highland cows!!!  As I was walking back to the car I spotted a guy with a Quad Drone and his GoPro camera.  I had to talk to him about it and get his picture with the drone.  He was from Germany and quite pleasant.

It was fairly rainy on the way back, but not awful.  Bill dropped me off at the B&B and then went into town to find an ATM to draw out money to pay our B&B bill.  They now said that they couldn't accept credit cards, so we just took the money out and paid them so we don't have to worry about it on Wednesday.

After a relaxing time in our lovely room, we drove down the mile to Crannog's Seafood restaurant.  Jim, our host, had made the reservation last night for us.  It was pouring down rain at 6:30 when we left the B&B, and we had to walk a couple of blocks to Crannog's from the car park.  We did get a window seat to look at all the rain coming down.  However, within an hour the sun was shining.

We both got specials from the blackboard.  I got the baked cod filet with parsley mash, asparagus, and lemon hollandaise.  It was good, but cod doesn't seem to have much flavor.  Bill got the Mallaig langostines which were huge!  It came with salad and fried potatoes.  We shared dessert:  apple and rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream.  The wait staff were really pleasant and the meal decent.

It wasn't raining when we walked back to the car park, but it was blowing like crazy.  And of course it started pouring again when we got back to the B&B.  I rinsed out some clothes and am now totally ready for bed.