The summation of today is monsters come in many shapes and sizes.
With a successful first night’s sleep in the motorhome achieved, today was primarily about a monster hunt and I think I had found two of them by 8am this morning when arguments about who got to hold Cub our traveling bear led to poor Cub being shut away in a motorhome locker for the rest of the day. The weather was much better with sunshine and blue skies to start the day. So a resetting short walk from our campsite down to the edge of Loch Ness got us back on track and (after a quick unsuccessful hunt for signs of Nessie) we headed back to drive to the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition to learn more about him.
They supposedly had some large parking bays at the front but these were coned off so with some careful manoeuvering by Matt and directions from the car park attendants we parked up round the back. The centre wasn't quite what we expected, consisting of several walk through rooms where you watched videos describing the history of Loch Ness and the eponymous monster sightings. It was certainly interesting though and held Forrest's attention. Paloma though was getting fidgety towards the end. We then went for a hot chocolate and snack while waiting for our boat trip slot which we had booked on arrival at the centre that morning.
After a short minibus trip to the mooring we boarded the Deep Scan. This boat was named after the famous 1987 expedition to hunt for the Loch Ness monster. As well as seeing the picturesque views and landmarks of Loch Ness the boat is also an active research vessel and we got to see some of the depth scanning equipment in use, though unfortunately there was no sign of Nessie on this trip.
The captain offered the youngsters onboard the chance to do a bit of driving for the last part of the trip and Paloma was very proud to have steered the boat between the buoys marking the way into the marina.
With a few hours to kill we decided to track down Forrest's favourite Highland Cow from yesterday's hunt which was located just south-east of Inverness in the coastal town of Nairn. Once ‘Tammie Norrie’ was located we explored the beach area, with the kids even crazy enough to brave a paddle. Then rather than the 8 mile ‘drive’ to our campsite straight across the water in Fortrose we had to take the 30 mile route via the Kessock Bridge on the outskirts of Inverness.
Shortly after our arrival our friends also arrived to join us and it was great to see the kids playing so nicely together after so long apart. After dinner we decided to wander up to Chanonry Point to see if we could spot any dolphins.
The kids were splashing in the sea whilst we wandered on the beach a little way behind. Suddenly I realised that Forrest no longer had his coat on. I ran to catch him up and check where it was to be told he had left it on the shore somewhere!!! A prompt about turn and an abandonment of our walk commenced with everyone searching the shore line and hoping the tide hadn’t come in too far to wash it away. Thankfully, halfway back to the campsite we found it. How someone who is usually so bright can sometimes have so much lack of thought astounds me. We will have to save the dolphin spotting for tomorrow…
Blogged by Amber.
