229.71 kms: Loch Ness Holiday Park, Invermoriston-Bus Stop, Invermoriston-(By bus)-Drumnadrochit

Anyone closely monitoring the blog will see that the increase in mileage from yesterday to today equals a grand total of one point eight kilometres. We woke up on the hard plastic mattress of Legolas and said 'Should we catch the bus?' And all parties answered 'Aye'.

I'm not even going to try and justify the reasons or make excuses. I am going to remind any cynics, and assuage my own guilt, by merely pointing out that Milngavie to Inversnaid has been traversed twice and that means that little and occasional cheats are allowable.

Top: On Loch Ness Bottom Left: On the bus Bottom Right: A visitor to the boat

We spent the day on extended breakfasts, small walks, extended lunches and a cruise with a true believer on Loch Ness. It's an odd thing to be the only people. In restaurants or on cruises of Loch Ness. David's afternoon was filled with the cruise ship passengers who were ferried up and around Loch Ness from Inverness to see all there is to see, but his two o'clock sailing was just V—— and I. David came to Loch Ness in 1968 as part of an investigative team looking at the possible things that Nessie could be. He is still there. His boat speil is practised and despite the more intimate setting of only two passengers which can sometimes become a more conversational thing, he stuck to the script which actually involved playing a video he had made. Complete with laminated signs which he periodically pointed at the screen that said things like 'That's me on the left', and ' Me in 1972'. It was really strange. And even though he had been through every possible thing that Nessie may or may not be and ticked them off as probable 'no's, there was a feeling you were left with that he still believed there may be something out there as yet unexplained. I couldn't help wandering if that doggedness was the reason his little signs pointed to an 'ex-wife' rather than a 'wife'.

Urquart Castle from Loch Ness

We must have been noticeably lazy in town all day. When we got to our B&B, Rory, our host, made the strange comment 'I know' to our saying we hadn't actually walked that day, but had, rather, caught the bus. Imagine living somewhere like a small Scottish village where everybody knows everything?
Good night to Drumnadrochit, good night to you.

227.91 kms: Invergarry-Fort Augustus-Invermoriston

Two days of sunshine was all the Scottish climate could handle, and it repaid such wanton extravagance with downpours. Clad all over with high-tech plastics, we quite joyously headed for that most unusual of things on this trip—a mid point with facilities; a lunching place; civilisation half-way between civilisations. Fort Augustus. And with it, the start of Loch Ness. Very exciting.

Top: Tower in the river at Fort Augustus Bottom Left: Bridge of Oich Bottom Right: Detail of Lock furniture

The walk we are doing can be done, in the same number of days, by kayak. And there were two groups of people we kept encountering along the way. It is against the current, and at the various locks they have to remove their kayaks and wheel them, fully loaded as they are with all their gear, through the whole lock system: there is no operation of the lock mechanisms for anything so insignificant as a kayak. There is something intriguing about kayaking everywhere, but I am sure it would end up being as labour intensive and sometimes down-right miserable as walking. No way of travelling is perfect. Or I am yet to find one. Have you? Everything has its pros and cons.

Top: Along Loch Ness Bottom Left: V—— amongst the lock furniture Bottom Right: One of at least a million waterfalls seen so far

Soup and sandwiched up we headed out along the forest paths along Loch Ness. We had booked into a hobbit hut on the shores of Loch Ness for the night. Our hobbit hut was, as you can see, called Aragorn. THE Aragorn, son of Arathorn, a.k.a Strider. Which proves once and for all that Strider is, and has always been, mine! This is a long debated discussion of stupendous unresolvability between me and my best friend. Just because you fancy Viggo does not mean Strider is yours. The purity of claiming Strider as yours is being the first (of the two of us) to 'read' the character, it usurps all other claims merely involving ugly-chinned actors disguising that fact well under a bushy beard. But now it's settled. Well, it would be if I was telling the truth. We really stayed in Legolas.

Left: Our hut Right: Okay! Our real hut!

Good night to Invermoriston, good night to you.