Skip to main content

NC500 - Dolpin Spirit and the Drive around Loch Ness (Day 10)

We had an early start on day 10 of our adventures as we booked to go and ride the Dolphin Spirit Cruise. We were extremely hopeful to catch a glimpse of some wildlife, but unfortunately we were not so lucky. However, this was a theme for the holiday. We had missed out on other wildlife cruises in the trip too because we were a little outside of the tourist seasons. The Dolphin Spirit cruise is a 90-minute boat trip out onto the Moray Firth. Although the most we caught a glimpse of was some more birds, I would still say it was worth our time. There is something about being sat on a boat with the most special person that is quite heart-warming. Especially, if you are slowly turning into a ice cube! Our only warning is to be careful when driving to the location as your satnav will try and take you somewhere else!



Next on our list was the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition. For anyone that likes to learn about the history and myths of Loch Ness, this is a must see. The exhibit explains the myths of the Loch Ness Monster, and the history of how the Loch came to be. And who would have thought that if the original ‘Scotland’, had never collided with ‘England’ then the beauty that is Loch Ness would never have been.

For the rest of our day, I wanted to drive the whole way around Loch Ness and see what the different places had to offer. You can see the stunning views in the photos. We did intend on going into Urquhart Castle up close and personal, but as we had seen this from the Loch, and we had already spent quite a lot on our wedding and honeymoon, we opted against this. Maybe next time we venture north! We then headed South towards Fort Augustus. This was somewhere I wanted to stop, but due to the busy-ness in the area, again we opted to avoid this. I am not one for crowds, and it seemed a popular spot for tourists. Driving by you can see why, it does have some spectacular views. We then headed up the other side of the Loch along the B862. Driving this route takes you a little out from the Loch Ness but the views of the smaller Lochs is still something we would recommend seeing. 



Ten miles north, we took the B852 to stop off at the Falls of Foyers, as Nicole had read that the waterfalls here were worth a quite visit. As I was extremely tired, I was not looking forward to the very steep trek back up from the bottom viewpoint butt we didn’t need to go all the way down as there was a viewpoint in the middle. The falls were a little disappointing to say the least, as you can see. It was only a trickle! But maybe that was just due to the weather picking up and there being very little rain the week before we viewed the falls. 

We then continued along this road, with the route taking us back close to Loch Ness. We would recommend taking this route if you wanted to drive around the Loch. There were some more sketchy single-track roads, but by this point we were experts! This concluded our day trip, back to the AirBnB to get ready for a long day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Southampton 2022 - Let's go play mini golf! (Day 6)

Today was another day to catch up with family and friends. First off to meet up with Nicole’s close family friends and to meet Angela’s goddaughter. It has been a long time since I have been around a toddler. It took a bit of guess work to understand what she is trying to tell you, but she had a lot to say and was showing off all her toys! She was a big fan of her animals and diggers (aspiring after her Dad I believe). It was nice to catch up again. Next stop, mini golf with Nicole’s sister. We decided to make a journey over to New Forest Adventure Golf . This was a tricky course. It’s not like other crazy golf where there are obstacles in the way and you just hope for the best. This was more of a simple course that turned out to be quite tricky as it was very easy to knock the ball off course. Yet again, I did not win, but was much more of a victorious loser. At the New Forest Adventure Golf, it is your opportunity to take a quick trip around the New Forest and find out what each ar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Southampton 2023 - Ape-ing Around at Moors Valley (Day 3)

  You may have noticed by now that there can tend to be a bit of a theme in our holidays of us at some point doing Go Ape. We have said we would like to have a go at as many of the courses as we can, and also still had some of our gift voucher to spend, therefore decided to tackle Go Ape at Moors Valley Country Park . This is somewhere that Nicole used to go a lot when she was younger as it features a play trail, which is a series of different natural and wildlife themed play equipment spread out through the woods. Although we explored this later on, we started our day off with Go Ape. I would say that this Go Ape Course is probably my favourite so far. They seem to have done a lot of work on it since Nicole last completed it (although admittedly this was probably at least 15 years ago!). They have a different safety system in place than the other Go Ape courses we have done, which involves you being connected to the course at all times once you are on a section rather than havin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Southampton 2023 - A walk back in time

  When we last went down to Southampton, we visited Longleat Safari Park and, on the way back, we drove past Stonehenge . I said this was somewhere I wanted to visit, therefore we made sure to factor it in this time. We booked online for a fairly early time to visit, and made our way on the hour or so’s journey there. A tip for anyone who visits places like this often, we decided to join the National Trust as you can get entry for free with your National Trust membership despite it being an English Heritage site, which saves you over £40 (as long as you make your membership worth the money over the rest of the year). Once we arrived and queued to get in, we opted to go straight into the exhibition to find out more about the stones and their history, before going up to the stones themselves. There is an option of a bus to take you up Stonehenge, but we decided to walk. The walk is about a 4km round trip, but does allow you to see some of the Salisbury countryside. When we were walki...
Post a Comment
Read more