Smallards: Aberfoyle to Inverness, via Ben Nevis and Loch Ness

Thursday 8 November 2012

Aberfoyle to Inverness, via Ben Nevis and Loch Ness

We said goodbye to our little cottage in Aberfoyle in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park and headed North. We have very little time left now before we have to start heading back down South, so we made the decision that we would make Inverness our most Northerly stop. From Aberfoyle, we took the scenic route, to take us through the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe national park, to Fort William, and along the entire length of Loch Ness before landing up in Inverness.

It rained on and off the entire day. What should have been more amazing scenery was entirely compromised by the mediocre weather.

The highlands are a strange landscape. Like something you would expect on Mars, with rust red coloured soil and dark grey rocky areas. It is considerably warmer than it has been, which has melted all the snow and made for raging streams and rivers. And no skiing for us (it was a long shot).

This area contains the highest peaks in the UK. Except we didn't actually see any of them, because of all the clouds!

Ben Nevis is somewhere behind all that grey haze:

As we drove along Loch Ness, the sun came out briefly so we got a few nice pictures. Loch Ness was a slight let down - no different really from any other Loch we had seen, a rubbish tacky visitor centre (not even on the Loch) and no obvious way of actually getting down to the Loch for walks or picnics.

And no monster was sighted.

In Inverness we had decided to book into a backpackers hostel as there were no campsites open. It wasn't too bad - good kitchen facilities and we chatted to loads of other backpackers from all over the world. Plus it was only £8 per night each. Downside was we shared a dorm room with seven other people - it was difficult to get much sleep what with everyone getting up and down to go to the loo, etc.