Loch Ness Monster Search

We are seeing much of the countryside and on Friday (Sept 7th) we pulled Harrison out of the 1/2 day of school and took the train out of Edinburgh and up to Inverness ... we quite literally fell in love with the countryside in particular rolling hills of green along Loch Ness and especially the purple fields of heather throughout the Caringorm mountains. It is a very specific sensation to feel a close association and strong bond with a particular region and with the land. Although it can be cliche to say that it is imbedded in one's blood or one's genes passed down from ancestors long ago, nonetheless I can think of no more accurate description than that to explain the sense of belonging when setting eyes upon this beautiful area.

We arrived in Inverness about noon yesterday and put our camping backpacks and gear in storage lockers so we wouldn't be limited by them. We caught a 1:00pm tour through Jacobite tours (see www.jacobite.com) that included a 1/2 hour boat trip
on Loch Ness, visiting Urquhart Castle, and going through the Loch Ness 2000 exhibit at Drumnadrochit. Harrison loved it and was really pleased that we did this trip since before we moved to Scotland he said that he wanted to have a picnic on the
shores of Loch Ness (hopefully close enough we had some lunch at the visitor centre at Urquhart Castle right on the shores). Although Parker slept through the boat trip and Urquhart Castle he seemed quite interested in the Loch Ness Monster exhibit
later in the day.

That night we tented at a caravan campground in Inverness ... nothing special to look at but it certainly was convenient being located in town and right beside a large aquatic centre. We had fun swimming and on the water slides (called water flumes here) before catching an afternoon train back to Edinburgh so that Sunday we could go to a couple of University of Edinburgh
events organized through the international students' centre.