We begin our story on the banks of the famous Loch Ness. Our mission: find Nessie. We booked three nights at this house – the whole thing – with the Alleys (total 4 adults and 7 children).
Our home station, as I’ll call it, was situated high up on the hill overlooking the famous loch, and the many large picture windows afforded an obstructionless view of the loch from nearly every room.
Ah, here is the view from the house. Breathtaking to say the least.
Inside the house was just as impressive, with antique furniture, knickknacks and a treasure trove of books about the history of the Loch Ness Monster and other mysterious creatures. I spent a few hours over the course of our stay browsing the library.
The kids ate their meals in the formal dining room.
While us grown ups ate at the “other” dining table with the large Nessie-viewing picture window.
I kept my eyes on the lake as much as possible, with my camera at the ready, just in case something large and black appeared on the water.
I was rewarded early, for on the first day, I spotted a dark, mysterious object moving across the calm waters. I quickly snapped a photo, while mentally preparing for the worldwide fame that would follow.
Thankfully, I had the foresight to zoom in on my newly acquired photo before I ran hollering “I saw it!” Sadly, not Nessie. But I was just getting warmed up. No one finds Nessie their first day at the lake anyway. I’ve still got a few more days, I told myself (silently).
Not to be downtrodden, I picked up my camera and called out to the kids that I wanted to hike down to the lake. So we pulled on our Wellies and went on an adventure.
We found a trail near the house.
Traversed through thick jungles of ferns and (ouch!) stinging nettles, till we came to . . . . a highway, which ran along the lake. There was no way to get to the bank of the lake, so we went back to the house. Yup, that was it. Our hike in a nutshell.
We would soon be rewarded, because a short time later we ventured out again in search of the elusive Nessie, this time via 2 minivans, and we found her!! (or him, no one actually has checked, but most scientists still think she’s a girl) But while the children absolutely loved playing with (and on) Nessie, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that she’s really just reinforced fiberglass. I assume it must be reinforced because 7 children were jumping and sliding on her for half an hour.
But this sighting was merely a stepping stone, nay a catapult (like a trebuchet)
launching us to our next sighting. This time we left the shores and ventured out on boat, complete with state-of-the-art sonar Nessie-finding equipment.
But who needs all that fancy equipment when you’ve got state-of-the-art children to do the looking for you? Stop looking at the camera kids and turn around. Scan the waters for anything that resembles a huge black sea creature, with a long neck.
Ah, to feel the wind in my hair . . . I feel at one with the sea, I mean lake.
There it is!! I see it!! It’s Nessie!! We found her!! Quick get the camera. Darn it, Merrill, it’s blurry. Why are all the pictures of the Loch Ness monster blurry? This one won’t ever stand up to scrutiny.
I can tell by your face how disappointed you are with that picture Merrill. There’s always next time . . . maybe.
You can see the kids didn’t need a Nessie-sighting to have a good time.
So remember that view from the house. Well, that’s
Urquhart Castle you see there. The most famous castle in this area. Oliver Cromwell once went there for something, can’t remember exactly, that’s what Wikipedia is for. Anyway, this area where the castle lies is where most of the credible Nessie sightings were from. So let’s venture on down shall we.
Zoom in . . . .
Ok, here we are. There’s a good lookout. Let’s head up there and check it out.
Never mind, not much room up here. (Whatever you do, do not zoom in on Janeen’s face).
Nothing to see from atop the castle (unless you zoomed in like I told you not to), But here’s a nice view on the ground. Yup, that’s all 11 of us. Felt like 22 much of time, but we’re family now, so it was fantastic fun the whole time.
This was the only time we actually got down to the water’s edge at Loch Ness. There’s not exactly a public beach anywhere, so we were excited to find this area by the castle.
We continued our search for Nessie from the shore, even tossing some rocks into the water to try and encourage the monster to make an appearance. No luck.
Mark even tried to bribe Nessie out of the water with apple-flavored rice cakes, but all he managed to bring to shore were a few hungry ducklings.
Later as I was looking out at the water I thought surely there as a monster chasing after this large vessel in the water.
Argh! Wrong again. I was beginning to think I was never going to find what I came to Loch Ness for.
But I thought wrong. I found exactly what I came Loch Ness for.
I found this.
And of course this (I took them home with me too).
Loch Ness was absolutely wonderful to visit. The house was amazing (Lyana can give you the details if you want to visit. Better yet, the owner says he’s entertaining offers for selling it upwards of 725,000 pounds [not dollars] if you are interested). I would love to return.
Oh, wait. Look. I did capture Nessie on camera after all. See? What do think about that?
P.S. Don’t zoom in or you’ll burst my bubble.
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