Jun 13 - nessie and lumpy

We had breakfast in town, rather than at the hotel, and then went back and picked up our stuff and checked out.  It was an easy drive to Loch Ness, except for some construction in Inverness and a "diversion" (the word for detour).   Had we followed the Nav, we would still be going around and around and around ... but we diverted and found a workable route.

The route took us south on the left side of Loch Ness and we soon got there, took in the obligatory exhibition, purchased the obligatory souvenir and took the obligatory boat ride.

It was a drizzly day so the boat ride wasn't much.  It was interesting to see the depth finder on the wall; it drops off almost immediately to over 700 feet.  Deep and cold.  Scientific studies have plumbed those depths with sonar arrays and have not come up with anything.  In fact, it seems that the mathematics wouldn't work since the food chain is so sparse.

As usual with these things, I learned a lot that will quickly forget but the overall picture will remain.  The same holds true with the distillery tour; learned a lot but the fine details will fade.   Where did that oak come from anyway ?  Yes, I remember !

The boat ride was at 1pm, returning at 2pm.  We then had a sandwich in the shop and headed south, still on the west side of the Loch but later following the road to the east side.  Narrow and twisting, rain on and off, it was not a relaxing ride by any means.

Once we got to Fort William, we're about half-way from Inverness to the end of the chain of lakes.  The chain from Fort William southward is open to the ocean.  At the southernmost point is Oban and then the road got really interesting !  Lumpy is the only word that can describe it.  It's almost a no-man's land it's so up, down, around and around.  These aren't rolling hills, it's a splatter of geographical porridge from on high.  After about 15 miles of this, we reached our hotel, a big old building covered in ivy.

The rooms are "ok" but we don't have great wireless coverage.  In fact, we have wifi in our room but Jim and Sheryl do not.  In fact, I've got wireless with my old mac laptop but my phone won't connect reliably.  Sandy had marginal service with the ipad.

Jim and Sheryl came to our room and we sorted out our destination for Saturday -- tonight -- Moffat.  I remembered afterwards that Moffat, shortly into Scotland, was a Control on London-Edinburgh-London.   Later on in the evening we also booked Bath, so we're now set through the beginning of my ride in Ireland.

Moffat, Bath, Liverpool, Liverpool, Dublin, Dublin, Midleton ... that's the plan so far.  Jim, Sheryl and Sandy will then need to book a couple of nights while I'm riding and then be back in Dublin for the ferry back to England.  We need an interim night on the 25th, then the 26th-29th are booked in London.  The 30th is booked in Herentals Belgium and then a night or two gap, then Paris.  In fact, there's precious little left to book in terms of hotel rooms.

Today our plan is to leave here, have breakfast on the way, do some touring in Glasgow and then drive one our south of Glasgow to Moffat.  Tomorrow will be a Motorway day from Moffat to Bath.

This town is tiny.  There are no restaurants or shops, it seems.  We ate at the hotel, expecting to find pub food.  In fact, it was almost gourmet dining.  Wonderful.  A pint of local beer and a half-pint of Guinness completed the picture.

Onward ?