Life . . . Reframed: Loch Ness, Dores, Rothiemurchus Forest and Loch an Eilein's Castle

July 25

Our first day in the Inverness area - woke up to full-blown sun (which we are told is unusual around here), so we decided to find a place to hike and have a picnic on Loch Ness. The shoreline is very rocky, and we didn’t come across anything that looked like a beach . . . so we got out and walked along the shore for awhile. The water was chilly, but I had to make sure I at least dipped my big toe into the famous Loch! We chatted with people from a number of different countries who were camping, then left to find a place to have our lunch. Finally found a place in a little town called Dores which is near the head of the Loch. It’s claim to fame is a quirky resident named Steve Feltham, who has spent 17 years of his life living on the Loch searching for Nessie. He lives in this little trailer which the town of Dores has allowed him to park on the beach and build a little deck outside. He has no power and no running water, and appears to support himself by making and selling little models of the Loch Ness Monster. I didn’t notice him staring at the Loch nonstop, so it’s possible he may have missed seeing it. A lot of tourists stop to talk to him, so I think it’s good for town business. If you can enlarge this photo, the story is quite interesting (at least it was for me!) If not, here's a weblink for the man: http://www.nessiehunter.co.uk/about.htm

The beautiful and famed Loch Ness. It's really big!

A rocky beach on Loch Ness.

Yes,we're here! :-)

The beach at Dores on Loch Ness

Steve Feltham - Nessie Hunter. His permanent home/Nessie Hunting lodge at
Dores, Scotland

If you can enlarge this, read it. Fascinating guy!

He makes little Nessie models for sale to help support his lifestyle. I probably
should have bought one, but I didn't.

We then drove to the Rothiemurchus Forest (yes, that really is the name) near a little town called Aviemore in Cairngorms National Park. (Love these names!) It has apparently been voted Britain’s best picnic spot, so we thought we’d better check it out since we’ve been doing a lot of picnic-ing. There is a sweet little lake there, with a small island offshore. And guess what’s on the island? Why, an old castle ruin, of course.

Little cottage with a really short door at Rothimurchus Forest.

Castle on an island.

Close-up of the castle.

The lake is called Loch an Eilein which means 'Loch of the island’. We decided to take the 3.5 mile hiking circuit around the lake - at places it felt like we were back home in BC, and in other spots it was clear we were in Scotland with all the beautiful heather bushes under the trees. I even found some wild blueberries - the little tiny ones like I used to pick in the prairies! Yum.

Such a pretty place.

Hiking trail around the lake

Tree out of some sort of nightmare. It looks like
it's a weird person.

Huge fields of heather - so pretty.

Gorgeous little lake - took us a couple of hours to walk around it.

I found some information on the castle on http://bit.ly/1nt8lJy, and have copied it here - kind of interesting:

Loch an Eilein Castle was built by John Comyn II, known as the Red Comyn, in the 13th century. It guards the strategic cattle-stealing route, the Rathad nam Meirleach, which runs along the shore of the loch. Locals used to keep a cow tied to a tree in hope that the raiders would take that and leave the rest alone. The three murderers of a Macintosh chieftain were imprisoned in chains here for seven years, before being executed in 1531. The castle was most recently fought over in 1690. Grizzel Mhor (Big Grizelda), the chieftain's wife, held it for Clan Grant against the King in 1690. There is said to be an underwater zig-zag causeway leading out to the island.

We didn’t find the causeway . . . but these were some of the sights along the way.