Scotland Day 8 - Inverness & The falls of Foyers

Before breakfast today we were trying to see if you could get down to the shore of Loch Ness anywhere. I found a walk for Foyer Falls mentioned a path that goes down to the shore. I also found mentions that you could access the shore in Fort Augustus, but no actual directions on where in Fort Augustus to go to get to the shore. At breakfast we asked the B&B owner if she knew of anywhere, and she said she didn't know of anywhere nearby, but since we were going to Inverness, there's a pub nearby called the Dores Inn where you can access the shore.

After breakfast, we went off to Inverness and did a walk along the River Ness. We stopped to eat our lunch (a slice of yesterday evening's Jalepeno and minced lamb pizza) in a picnic area by the bay. A man came up to us and pointed out a dolphin in the river, so we looked and saw the dolphin surfacing a few more times.

Only a little further on, a woman called us over to point out a seal (or it might have been a sealion, I can't remember now) in the river. It was quite far away, and just looked like a small brown blob. She said that there was often an otter that bobs up and down, and also the dolphins swim along the river, further into Inverness.

Carrying on our walk, we went further into Inverness, and took a detour to see the castle. One part of it looked like it had builders working inside it, and the other part was a court. As we walked up the river we could hear loud bagpipe music, singing, and a Scottish bloke announcing. We never saw what it was, but it appeared to be a large and well attended event in a stadium that was equivalent to a non-league football team stadium.

Going across the islands in the river, there were various tents and things set up. Near the end we saw a poster saying it was for Halloween on the Ness Islands, and it looked to be organized by the Scottish Highland Council.

We finished the walk by soon after 2pm, so went off to see the Foyer Falls. It was a really nice area, with great autumn colours and great falls. Unfortunately it was raining quite a bit, so I only took a few photos and my camera got quite wet. There was a building with a plastic wallet on the side that had local maps in it you could buy for 10p. These appeared to have been printed and helpfully marked up by hand, so we bought one of these, just leaving 10p in a smaller plastic wallet that was there.

Using the map we saw how to get down to the shore of Loch Ness, which is something that is not possible around most of the Loch. We followed the map and got down to the shore, and took some misty rainy photos looking down the Loch towards Inverness.

After our walk we went to the Dores Inn, which was very popular. All the tables in the restaurant area were already reserved, but we managed to get a table in the bar area. After some more people without reservations had filled up the rest of the tables in the bar area, some people who arrived later had to be turned away.

I had a vennison loin with sweet sauce stuff, and Mauser had a red wine marinaded lamb shank. For pudding we both had Apple and cinnamon with custard (though we ordered it with ice cream). I had a drink of Ale (Farr I think it was called), that had a nice fruity flavour. Mauser had a pint of Coke since he was driving. The food took a while to arrive, but was good sized portions (especially the puddings), and very nice. Although the price was quite good by restaurant standards, £20 each for a main course, pudding, and drink still seems a bit much to me.

We went back to the B&B and then watched a film called Loch Ness. It was very predictable and cheesey, and we didn't recognise any of the locations. I think that most of it (apart from being filmed in a studio) was probably filmed at Fort Augustus, which we didn't explore very much when we were there.

I sorted today's photos and wrote this blog post, then went to bed at 00.00 BST (today time) or 23.00 GMT (tomorrow time).