LOCH NESS

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We couldn’t come to Scotland and not see Nessie so we booked ourselves into Loch Ness Caravan Park. This was right on the side of Loch Ness so if we didn’t see him here then we weren’t going to see him anywhere. We managed to get the last available pitch. Unfortunately when we arrived we discovered that this was right next to the toilets and showers, which we would later find out were not always hot - we would not let this spoil our stay. We needed supplies so took a ride out to our local shops. The journey took a little longer than expected when we realised that our local supermarket was a 50 mile round trip to Inverness. We have to say we were not that impressed with Inverness so having to travel there every day for ice was a bit of a chore. although they did have a shop that was half rice half chips, and this did make us chuckle!

It was on our many journeys to Inverness and back that we would find out just how fearless the locals are. The main road in and out of Inverness is a windy road which runs along side Loch Ness. It is such a picturesque road that it encourages many non-locals to take their time and take in the views - much to the annoyance of the locals. We witnessed overtaking in wet foggy conditions on blind bends. Each and every time it made for nail biting viewing and many a near miss.

On our way to Elgin we found the village of Dyke. This being the name of Andy’s home village we had to visit. Strangely they both looked remarkably similar and on inspection of the map we later found out that we had now visited the only two villages called Dyke in the whole of the UK. In Elgin we spent, or rather Andy spent, hours looking in Gordon and MacPhail which boasted the largest selection of malt whisky in the world. They also have the oldest bottled single malt whisky in the world. The grandfather of the owner filled the cask, it was bottled in 1938 and sells for ten thousand pounds and fifty pence for 70cl. We went for something at a slightly more modest price, but still walked out £130 lighter!

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