Travelling to Loch Ness - It was Awesome!

Last Wednesday was my free day and I wanted to make more out of it than simply spening yet another day here cooked up in my own caravan as I do on any other day.

Luckily I had spoken to Babette the night before, the female volunteer from the Dell of Abernethy, and she had told me about her plans to visit Inverness and from there possibly venturing towards Loch Ness. I hadn't yet completely made up my mind, but I was tempted, as is only natural when invited to visit one of the main tourist attractions in Scotland.
But my own plan had been to visit Aviemore, first getting to know the more immediate surroundings and the towns and slowly expanding my explorations with each passing week.

Luckily I quickly came to my senses and gladly took her up on her offer, especially the fact that she had already planned the entire trip to Inverness and from there to Loch Ness. So, we met in Nethy Bridge by the bus stop, where we both proved rather inexperiences with driving on the left side. We had unfortunately stopped at the wrong bus stop at the right side of the road, where the bus couldn't possibly stop. So after a short sprint we managed to get to the right end of the road and the bus patiently waiting for us there.

The bus took us via a scenic and touristic route all the way to Inverness, having passed through every little town that can be found in little over an hour and a half. Once in Inverness we had approximately two hours to see as many touristy things as we could before we had to head back to the bus station again. Shortly after arriving we went our seperate ways, since Babette had already been there she wanted to see different things than I did. So I made for the most spectacular things that were relatively close together, while she went for the things that she hadn't crossed off her list yet. Regardless of the little time I had, I actually managed to see the Victorian Market, which is almost a bazaar, Inverness Castle, the City Theatre and film house and the River Ness, flowing through the city.

This might not seem like a lot, but on foot it surely felt like a lot and in the meager time that we had permitted ourselves, we were content with what we had managed to see.
After the short visit, we headed back to the bus station, where we learned that this was not the bus stop for the bus we needed to take, odd as it may sound. This meant that we had to hurry to the actual bus stop, but even before we got there we could see the bus already leaving and we tried to hail it even as it stood still at a corner. Although he couldn't open the doors there and then, he assured us that if we continued our way to the bus stop, he would then proceed to pick us up there. This meant that he was perfectly willing to abandon his strict route and schedule in order to get two more passengers on. Highly remarkable considering that most bus drivers in Holland would simply snicker and smirk in the same situation before driving off.

Once we were on board, we learnt that in Scotland there was no strict schedule and most places the bus stopped to either pick up passengers or let them get off were in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver explained that this was sadly how the public transport worked in Scotland, since there weren't enough bus stops the drivers would simply stop in any convenient place to accomodate (potential) passengers.

After nearly another hour, we finally arrived at Foyers, on the East side of Loch Ness. In comparison to the West side, where all the big tourist attractions are situated, Foyers was a remote village on the shore and we were free to find our own way. First we went to see the famous waterfalls, situated in a small park just outside Higher Foyers. Higher Foyers is the name some ingenious person had come up with when trying to find a name for the part of the town that was slightly higher than its counterpart: Lower Foyers. Sometimes people truly amaze me..

After we visited the waterfalls and made our way towards the lower part of the village through a number of hiking tracks, we rather abrubtly re-entered the village. When I say abrubly, I mean it quite seriously. One moment we were walking through a dense forest and all of a sudden we weren't. So we decided to head towards the Loch and see this thing of wonders for ourselves.
One small dilemma, there was no direct route there. Well, there was, but that was private property of a camping filled with rather smug-looking people, exactly what you don't want to see. On the other hand, since we didn't like them already, we made the decision to break in and behave as if we belonged there. This miraculously worked and not a single person tried to stop us or even suspected that something fishy was going on. So after a brief moment in which we felt like either James Bond or Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, we arrived at the Loch.
One word: wow. The Loch might not have been extraordinarely spectacular, but the whole picture fitted perfectly. The sun right over our heads broke just right on the surface of the water and in the distance we could even make out a small puff of mist and a massive range of mountains on the other side of the water was exactly what was needed to finish this amazing picture that I had formed in my mind previous to coming here. We explored the shores of the Loch and proceeded to take roughly a million photos each in under ten minutes, momentarily bending the laws of time and space to do so. And I drew a funny picture, which was very nice.
After this perilous and exhausting work, we laid down on one of the piers and enjoyed the warmth of the rays of sunlight that are so rare in Scotland until it was time to head back. Again snuck our way across the camping, this time even daring to use the loo without any form of consent.

The bus driver came to pick us up and promply left us in the middle of nowhere, sitting in the bus, because it was time for a short break. This simple thing puzzled us once again, since this is unimaginable back home, being allowed to remain in the bus while the driver stops and walks away.
Back in Inverness we even thought of having supper there, but we soon realised that the bus that we had originally planned to take was actually the last bus of the day. Thus we were forced to abandon our plans of eating out and got on the bus with a dejected look on both our respective faces.