I woke this morning at 6:30am, a significant improvement on previous days. After the requisite pissfarting about, shower, chat w JD and the boys, I headed to Beauly (corruption of 'beau lieu') for breakfast.
I then had a brief wander about Beauly Priory (or what remains of it)
I drove down the south side of Loch Ness to Urquhart ('URK-it) Castle, found a rarer-than-hen's-teeth carpark, and emerged from the visitor centre/entry pavilion to a good drenching of rain. You never know whether these 'showers' will last ten minutes or two hours, so I set off into the rain towards the ruins. (Yes, it did abate ten minutes later.)
As with many strongholds, it has been variously occupied by English and Scottish forces, who often looted or destroyed the buildings when they left. As with many others, it has been rebuilt several times, and materials from earlier iterations can be found throughout the region, the site having been used as a quarry/Home Depot/Bunnings for centuries.
But it is a glorious location, on the banks of Loch Ness, its waters stained dark with peat.
I headed further south to Fort Augustus, at the bottom of Loch Ness. It has two waterways connecting it to Loch Lochy - one a natural waterway, the other a series of locks, allowing ships to manage the 12m difference between the two lochs.
Construction of the locks began during the Napoleonic War, to allow ships to take a shortcut along the series of lochs that diagonally score the country (extend a line between Inverness and Fort William, and you can see what I mean). Of course, between the start and finish of construction (1822), the Napoleonic War was over (see also: Battle of Waterloo, 1815), and the railway had come to Scotland. Even before it was finished, it was a massive white elephant (in the words of one of the 'Scottish Canals' chaps I spoke to).
[I hope to update with pictures of the locks in action in due course. I began writing this on the day, but fell into conversation with a couple of charter pilots, and we ended up eating together at the tapas place up the road, until they kicked us out, and then back at the Beaufort Hotel for another round, until they too declared it closing time. It was a somewhat slower start the next morning...
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| Stornoway Black Pudding (between the egg and the toast); good, but I prefer haggis. |
I drove down the south side of Loch Ness to Urquhart ('URK-it) Castle, found a rarer-than-hen's-teeth carpark, and emerged from the visitor centre/entry pavilion to a good drenching of rain. You never know whether these 'showers' will last ten minutes or two hours, so I set off into the rain towards the ruins. (Yes, it did abate ten minutes later.)
As with many strongholds, it has been variously occupied by English and Scottish forces, who often looted or destroyed the buildings when they left. As with many others, it has been rebuilt several times, and materials from earlier iterations can be found throughout the region, the site having been used as a quarry/Home Depot/Bunnings for centuries.
But it is a glorious location, on the banks of Loch Ness, its waters stained dark with peat.
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| This tower was built by John Grant of Freuchie, as part of his obligations for receiving the land from King James IV in 1509. |
Construction of the locks began during the Napoleonic War, to allow ships to take a shortcut along the series of lochs that diagonally score the country (extend a line between Inverness and Fort William, and you can see what I mean). Of course, between the start and finish of construction (1822), the Napoleonic War was over (see also: Battle of Waterloo, 1815), and the railway had come to Scotland. Even before it was finished, it was a massive white elephant (in the words of one of the 'Scottish Canals' chaps I spoke to).
[I hope to update with pictures of the locks in action in due course. I began writing this on the day, but fell into conversation with a couple of charter pilots, and we ended up eating together at the tapas place up the road, until they kicked us out, and then back at the Beaufort Hotel for another round, until they too declared it closing time. It was a somewhat slower start the next morning...
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