Nessie, can you hear me?

After a fortifying lunch and a spin around the souvenir shop (hurrah, one postcard!) I piled back onto the bus for the drive to Loch Ness.

We drove to Fort William amongst still more stunning scenery and on the way stopped at a rather historic place beside Loch Oich called the ‘Well of the Seven Heads’. The Well is so named because a band of men killed seven members of Clan MacDonnel in retaliation for the murder of the two rightful heirs to the clan title. Finding themselves on the way to visit the Chief of MacDonnel, and not wanting to present him with dirty heads, the men stopped to wash the heads in the well here. Lovely.

There being no more sweet stories like this to be shared on the way, we shortly got to the Caledonian Canal, which marks the southern end of Loch Ness. We drove up the western side of the Loch and learnt all sorts of things about it (740 miles deep, 23 miles long etc) before reaching Inverness, turning a corner and starting back down the eastern side. We passed Urquhart Castle (I declined a visit to the ruins) and travelled onwards to Drumnadrochit where a ferry trip awaited.

The ferry trip across Loch Ness was a great experience. Because the Loch is filled by peaty runoff from the boggy hills, the water is incredibly inky. I didn’t see any monsters, but then I couldn’t see anything!

Taking as many photos as my icy fingers could manage, I then bought a whisky and settled down inside the ferry café to experience Loch Ness from somewhere warm. Most of my fellow tourists had the same idea and I made some very nice acquaintances.

Back on the bus I quickly fell asleep (nothing to do with the whisky!) and woke up when we reached our dinner stop at Pitlochry. The place with which the company has an ‘arrangement’ was closed so with two of my new friends (a woman called Payel and her mother Lackshma) I braved the strange streets to find somewhere to eat. I ended up with a decidedly average steak sandwich and had to wolf it down in time to met back up with the bus. Frustratingly, we had the world’s worst trainee waitress and the bill took a long time to get sorted. Thus, the three of us were 15 minutes late for the bus… fortunately it was still waiting.

From there it was a tranquil drive through a darkening sky to get back to Edinburgh by 8pm. Having made plans to meet up with Payel when she is in London next weekend, I said goodbye to everyone I had met and wandered back along the Royal Mile to my hostel. I was too tired even to shower, falling into bed with my clothes on.

The next day was spent travelling home, and was unremarkable. I travelled through Newcastle, Sheffield and Milton Keyes and could tell when we got to London because the air quality changed very quickly. London is very dirty!

But, I am so glad to be here.