Visibility: poor

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We drive to Inverness through heavy rain. Water cascades off the hills, streams carry mud down into plunging rivers. It takes two hours to cover the seventy-five miles.

In the mobile phone shop, the two young assistants require ID in the name of Jane's company before they'll give her a new SIM card. Being on holiday, we have no business cards. Jane can show e-mails addressed to her at her company on her phone, but they need a credit card or a piece of paper. They're really sorry but they can't do anything without ID: it's for our data protection. After our drive, we're not giving up easily. There's some discussion between the assistants, who are trying to be helpful. At last they decide they can do it if Jane gives her password. Unfortunately, they don't know it. One of them calls their company. As they tell her the password, she writes it down, spelling out each letter aloud in our earshot. She hangs up and asks us for it. Perhaps it's enough that we know what the letters spell. Anyway, it gets the job done.

On the way back, we consider looking at Urquart Castle, but Loch Ness is a grey expanse with no horizon. We stop at the visitor centre, where a series of short films debunks the myth of a Jurassic monster. Anything in the loch would have to post-date the last Ice Age, and anyway there's not enough for a large creature to feed on. We're shown how the most famous photos were faked, and what can be mistaken for a creature on the surface of this huge body of water: the wake of a boat, a mirage, floating debris. There's no risk of anything being sighted today. You can barely see the loch.

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