IF YOU DON’T go to Loch Ness — if you’re planning to visit Scotland, that is — you have rocks in your head; this vast expanse of salmon-rich fresh water is quiet, secluded, peaceful, and tranquil (and I know I’ve used those words several times on this trip), but if you don’t go you’ll never know: and for the record, as I’ve always known, the “legend” of the monster is just a pile of old salmon poo.

I’m in Aberdeen as I write, and I must say I’m distinctly underwhelmed; it’s a place I haven’t been before, and although a lesser presence in my familial past than Glasgow and Scotland’s broader west — or dad’s people from Edinburgh — I’m struggling to find any redeeming features. One was found at the Northern Bar, across from Sainsbury’s Local (where I bough a few provisions earlier this evening) in the form of one of the best fish and chip dinners I’ve had in some time, but the list is…thin…from there.

Even so, let’s turn our minds back to Loch Ness, that seat of Scottish mystique consequent upon the legend of a monster dwelling within its subterranean depths. I think by now most readers (and most people who know me personally) know that whilst incredibly attached to my Scottish heritage, this particular piece of “history” is one with which I have no truck. There is no monster. At most, there has been a series of elaborate hoaxes. The entire story is just a pile of shit.

But I am serious when I say people should go to Loch Ness.

As I noted yesterday, the drive from Kennacraig through the Highlands was treacherous, partly because of the road system and partly because of the rain (and partly because — after four hours’ intense concentration broken only by stopping and walking about for a minute or two — it was intensely tiring). But even if those factors were not in evidence, the last 20 miles involved driving on narrow, winding, one-lane roads in near darkness…have a look at this…

The road I’ve photographed might look innocuous enough, despite the obvious fact it’s wide enough for one vehicle only…but add more bends, more hills, lots and lots of trees, near darkness, and the fact people (including me) typically roar around them at 50 mph on the straight bits (to compensate for all the braking and slow bits) and you can see why these roads are trying, to say the least.

Still, in my view, it’s a small price to pay.

Because I headed to Loch Ness from Kennacraig, the road took me through other places many tourists regard as destinations in their own right: Oban, Fort William, Spean Bridge, Fort Augustus…but that last 20-mile tariff simply has to be paid, and while it’s an easier drive to get to the other side of the loch from Spean Bridge, that side is commercialised, whereas the side I went to is largely unspoilt. I know what I’d pick.

And the photograph I’ve opened this post with is an unabashed recommendation of where to stay; the Foyers Bay Country House is a beautifully maintained classic Scottish mansion that — refreshingly — is every bit as good as it looks on its website, and Chris and Elly are magnificent hosts (I would add that you should ensure you have plenty of time before you start talking to Chris; not because it’s a chore, but because you won’t want to stop chatting). It’s a seriously smart place to book.

Just be sure, however, NOT to book “Foyers House,” a comparatively unimpressive joint with a similarly-styled logo to Foyers Bay Country House; I went there by mistake, and the nasty piece of work who runs it — after demanding to know how I “got into (her) property” (the door was open and flapping in the wind, idiot) — was as unhelpful and unpleasant as she could manage, without being downright abusive, once she knew I’d booked a competitor property. Give that one the widest berth possible, and book the Foyers Bay Country House through the link I have provided.

There are waterfalls at Foyers; it’s something I didn’t actually know until I got there, and as they’re accessed by a walk of well over a mile and a half — given I arrived in the early evening last night, and had a drive to Aberdeen to get onto today — it was too late to go and have a look. Should I return (as I would dearly like to), I will do so too.

But today was about getting a look at the loch, and not for the first time since I’ve been in Scotland, I found myself exhaling very deeply, and feeling a lot of stress, and detritus, and emotional trash, and general ick just drain away as I stood gulping the sweet fresh air, and drinking in the sheer beauty of the loch. In this sense, my trip to Scotland to date has been unbelievably therapeutic, although that’s a big part of the reason I came here, and why I came here now. And just as the old country has already lent me its help on a very, very deep level, it did so again today.

I have a couple of other pictures I would like to show you:

I mentioned in my post last night that rain was audibly falling into the canopy cover of leaves; this picture (above) typifies the level of greenery around the entire Foyers precinct, before we even get to the trees around the house I stayed in. This is a place anyone with a heart will appreciate.

The one above isn’t your typical Loch Ness picture at all. But I thought it held quite some charm, and the ducks were cute…note the stone bridge. It just seems to hang there. One wonders where it comes from, or goes to.

The loch is actually full of salmon, and there are tightly enforced regulations to ensure it remains so; posted at every entrance to the shoreline are edicts that almost all fish caught must be thrown back; adult fish over 69cm are able to be kept: no more than two fish per season, and no more than two in any given week. There was no sign of any enforcement today, despite the fact the British summer technically ends in nine days’ time, on 22 September, but even so: the fact all these lakes are full of fish is excellent, and gives the lie to the degree of alleged environmental degradation that is occurring in this regard at least.

I have complained a few times that the best opportunities to get pictures on this road trip are impossible, because of the lack of places to stop; today I was able to get this majestic shot: it’s an upside of driving hundreds of miles on asphalted goat tracks across the highlands, and a well located “passing place” enabled me to get this one. To get to Aberdeen from Foyers, one must first head toward Inverness and then dog-leg back: so one might call this a shot of “heading toward Inverness the back way.”

And whilst my preferences in whisky are overwhelmingly of the Islay variety (but NOT Laphroaig), there are other things I enjoy from other regions, too: the Macallan (which some claim is Scotland’s finest whisky) is one of them; so too is the one pictured above, which I chanced upon whilst traversing the barely B-road route from Foyers to Aberdeen — all 130 miles of it — this afternoon.

There will be no further pictures from Aberdeen.

Tomorrow, I am heading south to Kilconquhar, and to the third of three castles in which I’m staying on this trip: thus far it’s one “yea” and one “noe” in judgement of the other two, but I have high hopes this one might be better than both.

And it’s hard to believe, but Saturday morning (Saturday night, AEST) will see me fly out of Heathrow for Melbourne: there’s still a bit of this trip to go, but I should flag the end of it is drawing nigh.

I’m ready to go home, even though I’d like to stay here; they’re different questions on different levels. But this trip has already done for me what I hoped the time away, in my preferred location and on my own terms, might do. I’m free of a fair bit of baggage, thanks to the introspection and freedom some clear air and a change of scenery has gifted me to slam the door shut on stuff I’ve struggled to get clear of. It means nowt to anyone else, I know, but it’s important to me.

I’ll be back tomorrow. And I hope to be able to give a positive report on Kilconquhar Castle…and nearby St Monan’s, which one friend was anxious to recommend. Tomorrow, we’ll find out whether she was right 🙂