On the road to Lochness

Well, after three great days/nights in Pitlochry and surround area, it was time to head north further into the Highlands. Our first stop was up about 40 miles at town of Aviemore, where the Cairngorn mountains are located. We parked the car and walked to Loch Morlich, a smaller lake with a nice beach to take a couple of pictures. From there, we began our daily hike (you probably have already noticed, we got a lot of exercise nearly every day of the trip - usually at least 2-3 miles of hiking - which was good since we were eating lots of "not-so-healthy", but yummy food the entire time). We went up into the Glenmore Forest on a trail called Mealla Bhuachaille - where we saw a lot of black slugs various times on the path - Ang didn't like them too much...

Another short drive higher into the mountains got us to the Cairngorn Mtn. ski resort - where we took the funicular (that is the covered lift) up to the top of the mountain for fantastic views of the surrounding valley and mountains. We picked up sandwiches to and continued our drive north towards Inverness.

From there, we headed to the famous battlefield at Culloden - and we walked the fields where the Scotland revolutionist Jacobites fought their final battle against the English in 1745 - losing badly under the leadership of young Prince Charlie. It was after this loss that resulted in the combination of Scotland and England into Great Britain. The battlefield is supposed to be famous for people with psychic energies because of how many people died there - I am pretty sure we saw some ghosts.

From there, it was off to Cawdor Castle where we toured the beautiful gardens - lots of color and dynamic floral designs, a nature walk, and hedge labyrinth area. We drove back through Inverness and headed down slightly south, hitting the west side of the famous Lochness. We stopped to take pictures and we tried to see the famous monster, but he must have been sleeping (or maybe he was watching a movie). We stayed a very nice farm B&B called Drumbuie Farms in the town of Drumnadrochit - and it had a great view of Lochness right from the B&B front lawn - gorgeous. It is in Drumnadrochit that a well done exhibit called Lochness Monster 2000 is contained - and we went through the half hour audio/visual education of the pursuit of the monster. We then at dinner at Fiddlers and then headed back to our B&B for sleep.
Bob found many monsters!