Time To Find My White Whale (Loch Ness Monster)

---

Today is the day and it is time for me to search for my White Whale (Nessie). Woke up early and packed a day pack for the long coach ride up north. I had booked my tour with a company called Rabbies. It is not an infectious disease company but I thought the name was kind of funny so I chose them. Price was reasonable, only $40 Canadian.

The tour was in a 16 seat coach and we had 14 people on this tour. It was a nice mix of people from a pair of sisters from Florida to a nice lady from Italy. On the way up to Loch Ness our driver, Graham told us about Scottish history and we stopped frequently to take pictures and to take breaks. I will say Scotland reminds a lot of the eastern provinces of Canada. I even saw a herd of deer wandering through a field and some elk wandering around with sheep.

We stopped in our final town before Loch Ness for lunch. I went to lunch with Franscesca the lady from Italy and the sisters from Florida. Together we decided to eat some haggis. We got the starter haggis which was a bit smaller and looked a ball of mixed meat. We all ate a bit of it and I will say it was OK, not spectacular, not bad and definitely edible. I was told later on never say that haggis is ok when you are in a bar. The sentiment around the table was about the same but we managed to eat most of it. We chatted a bit while we ate and I found out that one of the sisters was going to University in Scotland. I thought Scotland would be a kind of random place to go to University but Franscesca was also moving to Scotland for her PHD studies. Scotland must have some good universities because the sisters were moving from Ft Lauderdale and Franscesca was moving from Milan, Italy. We did joke around about the weather since they were moving from places with great weather to a place that rain a lot. It was raining at that time and I was concerned because I had a boat ride that afternoon and I had not brought an umbrella.

After lunch we drove the final stretch to Loch Ness and our stop was Urquhart castle. On the way to the castle Graham(driver) told us about the legend of Nessie. The first mention of the monster was back in the 6th century by a Saint Columba who wrote about driving away a monster that was bothering some local villagers. This act helped convert the villagers to Christianity. We learned about the various sightings over the years and how much tabloids were willing to pay for pictures of the monster. There are people who dedicate their entire lives to trying to find Nessie and no one has ever definitely proven its existence. The lake itself is too large to drain because it has a larger water volume than the rest of the lakes and rivers in the UK combined.

I will mention my own theories on the Loch Ness monster. I believe there is a second larger lake underneath Loch Ness with a small connection between the two. There is a colony of Nessies in the larger underground lake and very rarely one of them makes there way up to Loch Ness but since they can't survive in the sunlight they die quickly once they reach the surface and go down to the lake floor. That is why we rarely see them and why it is impossible to find Nessie again after a sighting. Of course this is just a theory and I have no way to prove it.

Anyway back to the tour. Urquhart castle is a castle ruin on the shore of Loch Ness. It was supposed to be an impressive fortification when it was intact. Loch Ness is very beautiful place to build a house or a castle and I can see why old Scottish lords would choose this place. The visitor center had a nice video of the founding of the Urquhart castle and the various times the castle was raided, destroyed and rebuilt. It had a nice feature at the end when the video ended the curtains were drawn back and you got a panoramic view of the castle and the loch.

We wandered around the castle and the grounds for a while and learned a bit about life in castle from the various displays in the castle. We than boarded the boat which would take us across the Loch. It was a pleasant boat ride and the weather had improved a lot at this point so it was a beautiful sunny day. I looked around for Nessie but she didn't show herself so I will admit I was disappointed. I do believe in monsters, ghosts and magic so I wanted to believe there was a mysterious monster underneath all that dark water that was just waiting to be found. I consoled myself by taking a picture with a Nessie statue near one of the gift shops.

That was it for the tour of Loch Ness and we drove back to Glasgow. We had a few minors stops and I spoke a bit more with my tour mates and we got a bit more info about Scotland and I found out next year would be an important time for Scotland because it would be the time for Scotland to vote on independence. It was all being done very gentlemanly unlike the Quebec referendum that I remember. That referendum got ugly with a lot of hard feelings on both sides. Graham told us it was a non partisan event so he could not tell us how he was planning to vote but I will be watching next year when the time rolls around.

We made it back to Glasgow at 7:30PM and we said goodbye. My review of this tour is that it was both entertaining and educational. It is a comfortable way to see Loch Ness and I may consider some of the longer tours they have.

Now that Loch Ness was behind me it was time for The Primitives concert. I had enough time to make it back to my hostel and take a shower and it was time for my concert. The concert was at a place called King Tut's Wah Wah Hut which is a famous live music venue in Glasgow.

I travel to see The Primitives twice a year or so and I have been to over a dozen concerts now. I have actually been to so many that Tracy Tracy the lead singer put me on a list so I don't have to pay for any tickets. I would tell that is a very good feeling walking up to the bouncers and telling them "I'm on the list".

The Primitives concert was wonderful and I really enjoy seeing them live. I didn't see many of the regulars that I usually see when I am at concerts in London but I did meet some Primitives fan that I hadn't met before. They did have some sound problems which did it make hard for some people in the back to hear the singing but after some adjustments the sound situation did improve.

I hung around afterwards hoping for a picture and an autograph but it didn't look like they were coming out. I was about to go when Tracy came down because she heard I was waiting so she was good enough to come down just for me (YAY). She signed my new shirt and I was going to get a picture but my camera decided to die right at that moment. I promised Tracy I would be in Edinburgh for their next concert and headed back to my hostel.

Once I was back there I gave a warning to my roommates that I would be leaving at 5AM tomorrow morning and apologized for waking them. Tomorrow was Edinburgh and I realized it was my last day.

---

Photos

Mountains
One of the many beautiful mountains in the highlands