Part 2 of our exciting highlands of Scotland tour took us to Lochness in search of Nessie. First, we had a delicious Scottish breakfast made by Liz. At first, we were the only people eating breakfast but then two more sets of guests arrived. After breakfast, we headed to Lochness. We got a later start than expected and I mistakenly read on the map that it was 8 minutes, not 8 miles away so we thought for sure, we would miss the ferry. Luckily an entire tour bus was late so the ferry company was holding the ferry and we just made it. We took the 30 minute ferry ride where we got to search for the Lochness Monster, affectionately known as Nessie. Shockingly, we did not see her.
At the end of the ferry ride, we went to Urquhart castle – also a ruins well preserved on the side of the Loch. We got to climb up some of the towers. One was 3 stories up a narrow twisty staircase that really needed a stoplight. People were going up and down at the same time making it quite difficult. The castle also had a bagpiper who we were talking to while we waited for our return ferry. Then we got another 30 minutes to look for Nessie to no avail. We did learn about John Cobb who died on the Loch trying to break a speedboat record. He did, but it doesn’t count because he crashed just before the finish line.
After Lochness, we decided to visit Cawdor Castle, the most Romantic Castle in Scotland. This castle is currently lived in so we weren’t able to see too many rooms. The girls hurried through because Emily couldn’t read as the plaques with information about the rooms were too high. At the end of the castle tour, Emily gave the castle a 2 out of 10. Then we went in search of the maze that we saw in the advertisement. Unfortunately, the maze is not open to the public as it is made of holly bushes, whose roots are very shallow and therefore walking over them would kill the bushes. Emily felt this was false advertising putting a maze in the brochure that no one can go into and it reinforced her 2 rating. Lastly, we walked around the gardens. This was more fun as the girls explored so the rating got bumped up to a 4. She would not recommend going to see it with kids.
We arrived back at the hotel around 4pm, early for us. Scott did some work and I took the girls for a walk to the beach. It was going well until it started to rain. We waited a bit on the beach but the rain did not seem to want stop so we headed back to the hotel. Upon recommendation from Liz, we went to the Classroom restaurant for dinner. It was quite good. The waitress was a teacher and we were doing some math questions when she came up to the table. She was quite impressed.
After dinner, the rain finally subsided and we just went back to the hotel for an early bedtime.
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