Inverness and Loch Ness...

Inverness is a beautiful little city. Coming from a place like Adelaide, where the central river is little more than a puddle, the wide expanse of the River Ness flowing through the city is impressive. It’s a green and pleasant land, Scotland, and there doesn’t appear to be any shortage of water. We also had fabulous weather while we were in Inverness (which always helps make a place seem liveable). As we were only there for a couple of days we spent one day walking around the city, and one day going to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle (I assume most tourists do). 

In Inverness we stayed in a central airbnb in Grieg St, which meant we were right by the river, and could easily walk to everything. Just by chance, in the evening we walked past a pub that sounded lively and had Scottish music playing. The pub was Gellions, which I’ve since read is the oldest pub in Inverness (1841). It was so great to go inside and see so many people having a good time. All ages together, everyone singing along or dancing – it was friendly and happy. It made me wish I had roots somewhere. How nice it must be to belong to a place, to know the music and the stories and the culture and know they are yours. 

The following day we went to Loch Ness. It’s such a touristy thing to do, but I couldn’t resist. I knew it would be beautifully photographic, so even if we didn’t see the monster (we didn’t!) it would be a lovely boat trip. It was a moodily atmospheric day, just the right sort of low scudding clouds to create dramatic lighting, shadows and gleams of sunlight dancing on the water. The surface is dark and reflective anyway (apparently there’s a lot of peat in the water and that makes it murky) so perfect conditions for monster sightings. 

Urquhart Castle was interesting. I often wonder how castles like these got built. Obviously they offer no defence until you have them pretty much complete – but they look like they’d take years and years to build. So what stopped an invading army coming along and taking over when you only had two walls up? Or your walls were only 3 feet high? Actually, maybe that is what happened. It must have looked amazing when it was completed.