Loch Ness & Urquart Castle

Finally, the much-awaited Loch Ness post. It took a combination of cabs, trains and buses to get our entire group to Loch Ness. We stayed in the small town of Fort Augustus, at the southern tip of the Loch. The Loch is connected to three other lochs by locks (the kind that are used on canals) to create a passage from the North Sea to the Atlantic. Fort Augustus is situated between the locks and The Loch, so there is lots of water to be seen. We arrived around 9:30, I think, and had to find the hostel. This was surprisingly difficult. We ended up having to ask for directions and still got lost. But luckily we found it and were delighted by the place. It's called Morag's Lodge, and I seriously recommend it to anyone wanting to stay in the Loch Ness area. It is rated at a 4-star hostel (they rate everything here) and really lived up to this rating.

There's not much to do in Fort Augustus in the off-season, so no one was out too late Saturday night. We woke up Sunday and were able to have breakfast in the hostel, which is good because Fort Augustus does not awake until 10am. Half of our group was leaving Sunday, and half of us were staying through Monday. We explored the Loch as much as we could by foot and got to see some great views. I really encourage you to look through the pictures (link on the left) and look at all of them, because the best ones are at the end!

After saying goodbye to half the group, the rest of us took a boat tour of the Loch. Loch Ness is the largest body of water in the UK, measuring in at 23 miles long and up to 750-feet deep. It is surrounded by large mountains that were covered in snow. Because it was the off season, we were the only boat on the water. The lake was like glass - Kenny Koenig, I can picture you barefooting on the lake, you would have loved it. The water was so calm that I got almost perfect reflections of the mountains in the water. It was absolutely beautiful. We were so lucky because the sun was shining, there was no wind and it was actually kind of warm. We all packed cold weather gear expecting to encounter arctic-like conditions, but we were really lucky with the weather.

Our boat didn't even go to the widest part of the lake, apparently tours like that only happen in the spring and summer. The boat trip lasted an hour and was very peaceful, but I would love to make a trip back in spring/summer and do the 2.5 hour long tour of the whole lake. (Allie and Kristin Bazlen, this means with you...) I had been feeling nauseous during the train and bus ride to get to Fort Augustus, but felt very comfortable on the boat. It felt a lot like being in Vermont, so I guess it felt a little bit like home. MOM WE HAVE TO COME BACK HERE, ok?

We did a little more exploring Sunday night and Monday morning before heading out to visit Urquart Castle. This is a castle that is literally on the loch. Absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately the castle is mostly in ruins and you can't climb all over everything, but it was still very pretty. I sat down for a few minutes on a bench in the sun and did not want to get up. Brandon, Sammi and I decided to spend a few extra hours at Urquart before getting the train back to St. Andrews, while Lauren went ahead to Inverness. I'm glad we stayed for two reasons: 1) my stomach could not have handled the bus ride back to Inverness (the train station) for another two hours, and 2) it was so pretty that we just sat and talked for the two hours and had a very relaxing hang out by the castle on the lake. I highly recommend this castle as well. If you are going to make the trip to Loch Ness, you owe it to yourself to check out the castle. Castle pictures are in a separate link on the left.

Our train ride back was long. That's pretty much all that can be said about that. But trains here are an effective way of traveling, and I much prefer them to nausea-inducing buses. Not traveling anywhere the next two weekends due to an immense amount of homework (what's that?) that needs to be dealt with. But I am sure there will be adventures here to write about. If nothing else, I can whine to all of you invisible internet-readers about Theology of the Musical. He had us sing "oom-pah-pah" from Oliver the other day because it was yucky out and he thought it would make us feel better. I don't even know what to say. We also spent an hour last class watching a Songs of Praise episode about Gilbert and Sullivan. You really can't make this sort of stuff up!