Touring Scotland – Tuesday

Silver Wedding Anniversary day, so it starts with opening our cards from friends and family. Again we are up just after 8am and down to breakfast. Then we head out. Our first stop is the Ben Nevis Range gondolas and a ride up above the snow line to The Lodge. It’s windy, gusting 35mph, and as we set off light rain starts, which turns to snow as we near the top of the 15 minute ride. We walk through the café and out onto the veranda. Boy it’s cold. We are tourists and dressed as such, not mountaineers, so it’s a case of a few quick photographs and retire to the shelter of The Lodge. No purchases from the café (we’ve just had breakfast) but we do buy, write and post a couple of postcards to our parents.

Our next destination is to be Fort Augustus, and we set off but we come across the monument to The Commandos and despite the rain I’m out of the car (the only on in the car park) and at the statue/monument – it’s fabulous and a fitting tribute to our fighting forces. Back in the car and we are soon in Fort Augustus, we park up and walk up the side of the lock gates to the top lock, across and back down the other side, cameras clicking all the time. The rain is returning so we get back in the car and head off up Loch Ness, next stop Inverness.

The Commando monument


Inverness is dry and bright, but chilly and breezy. We park in the multi-storey car park at the bus station and take the short walk into town. An indoor market, a shopping precinct, then the pedestrianised High Street, popping in and out of stores and small local shops. We stop at Smith & Jones for a light lunch before continuing down to the river, then back tracking up the High Street and back to the car. Our chosen route is to take the less well travelled Ness Trail down the east side of Loch Ness and after a slight detour heading the wrong way on the B852 we find our bearings and the right route out of town. The road is fabulous, narrow with passing places down the east side of Loch Ness. We stop and walk down to Flores Falls, both upper and lower view points, and back up to the car and on to Fort Augustus where we get a cake and a cuppa in the local Tea Rooms. Just as we get back to the car the worst weather of the trip blows in so we head for Fort William.

There’s no let up in the weather and Sue has always wanted to do Glencoe, so trusting that our luck will hold we drive straight to the turning onto the B863 at North Ballachulish. We get 200 yards from the turning and the weather breaks, the clouds clear and the rain disappears – our luck is in. It’s a 10 mile loop round the loch and back to the A82, and it is absolutely the crown to our trip. Fantastic, fabulous, everything. Momentous and powerful waterfalls, stark and stunning scenery, snow top mountain backdrops, it has everything, including sunshine – it was worth the gamble and the effort. We return to The Moorings for our last evening meal to find that they have set aside a bottle of wine, on the house, for us to have with our evening meal to celebrate our 25th Anniversary, a nice touch. Of course, I end the day with a wee dram.