Day 30 – Monday 20 June 2016

We departed the Columba Hotel in Inverness this morning at 7.45am & drove the short distance to the Caledonian Canal dock to board our cruise boat, the Jacobite Rebel. We boarded at 8am & headed up the Caledonian Canal to where it joined Loch Ness, yes, we are hunting Nessie, the monster of the loch. All of us had our cameras at the ready, even the captain of the cruise boat put his telephoto lens on his camera. The cruise boat was also fitted with a bottom structure radar, so that not only the captain but all on board could see the bottom structure or anything large swimming in the loch. Loch Ness is on an intercontinental fault line & as a result is very deep, narrow & long, Loch Ness is 755 feet deep at its deepest point with a mean depth of 433 feet. It holds more fresh water than all of the other lakes in England & Wales combined. As we headed out onto Loch Ness the weather started to close in with rain & wind, making it cool right down & cutting visibility. While Ron is ever the sailor, he spends all of his time outside in the elements & chatting with the captain. The rest of us are very precious & enjoy the warm comfort of the boat & look out the big windows. John, our local expert guide tells us facts & fiction about the lake, Nessie & history, when he runs out of stories he bursts into singing & we all join in – he is very good. He is very knowledgeable about the different clans too – he knew exactly where Ron’s Clan the MacIntosh (the MacThomas (Thompson) a subset of the MacIntosh) clan are & he is correct Ron’s great grandfather did stem from about 50 miles from Inverness in Foggieloan, (Aberchirder) if we only had more time he would have told us so much, but the coach awaits us. The mountains on one side of the loch are fairly steep, with rock slides evident down the face & the gorse out everywhere in brilliant yellow flower, with the mist & rain it does look beautiful. Alas, no sign of Nessie & we turn back, then the wind drops, the rain stops & patches of blue sky start to appear. As we pass the junction of the loch where it drops down a rock bar & forms the Ness River & the Caledonian Canal splits off we pass a lone fly fisherman, standing, waist deep in the rapids trying for a salmon in the turbulent water.

As we depart Inverness, at the dock area we see a large number of wind generator tower components awaiting deployment into the nearby North Sea. A little further north from Inverness along the Firth of Cromarty a number of North Sea oil platforms are moored, they are very large. The countryside is very pretty with masses of yellow gorse everywhere, the grass is so green & there are sheep & cattle everywhere in the fields. We stop at Helmsdale for a short break to stretch our legs, it is a sleepy little village on a small river with a small fishing port & a nice old stone bridge.

On the road again we drive along the edge of the North Sea, sometimes high on the clifftops & sometimes low & close to the sea. Now, in addition to the yellow gorse there are lots of small white flowers carpeting the valley everywhere. There are a lot of small farms scattered around, all with views to the North Sea.

We reach Wick for lunch at a small café, the only one we can find open in the small High Street, then head off to the nearby Pulteney Distillery, established in 1826. The Distillery is very interesting as we are shown through the full process for making whisky, fortunately the distillery is having some equipment replaced so we get to see everything with no noise but miss out on some of the process, we can take our time to look around. Our guide is full of information, one of the most surprising is that only 8 men produce 1.3 million litres of whisky each year. The other surprising thing is that most of the equipment used is so old, one of the machines is over 94 years old & used every day in the production process. The two stills used are big copper units, the first called the Wash Still & the 2^nd called the Low Wine Still. The whisky is stored onsite in big oak barrels purchased 2^nd hand from America as they are only used the one time for making bourbon. We walk into a couple of the whisky storehouses, they are very large with thousands of barrels & the smell (what they call Angel Breath) you could get drunk on it. Everyone is smiling when we walk out. There are some barrels that are more than 40 years old. The final part of the tour is the tasting & we taste firstly a 12 year old single malt Pulteney whisky, then a specialty, a very smooth whisky liquor that is very tasty indeed, Tereza even enjoyed it. One interesting titbit, they recommend 2 drops of water in the whisky to release the full flavour of the whisky.

Next is off to the north coast & we drive through John O’Groats, the small town that is the most northerly in the mainland UK, then turn west to the former Queen Mother’s summer home, the Castle of Mey. This castle was built in the late 16^th century by the 4th Earl of Caithness & by the time the Queen Mother purchased the castle in 1952 for 100 pounds, it was in a state of disrepair. She spent time & money to transform the castle into a holiday home & spent time there every summer for the rest of her life (she was 100 the last time she visited). The castle is kept the way it was when she was in residence, she established the Castle of Mey Trust in 1996 & transferred ownership to the trust so that the castle could be retained for the benefit of the local community. Prince Charles stays at the castle in summer each year. The Queen Mother must have had a good sense of humour, there are a lot of quirky little things in the castle that put a smile on your face. The rooms in the castle are nicely decorated with some nice pieces of furniture, ordinary everyday comfortable & useful items. She even purchased a second hand big planter from a local Wick 2^nd hand shop (for 5 pounds) that greets you as you enter. The dining room has a very worn out carpet that her mother-in-law gave to her & her husband (it was already well worn when they got it), when the servants didn’t like to put it in she apparently told them “you can’t get rid of something your mother-in-law gave you”. Our guide told us about the resident ghost & her personal experiences with it, mentioning that other guides have also had visits by the ghost, said to be of a former female resident of the castle called Fanny who committed suicide by jumping from a tower window because she couldn’t marry the man she loved. We didn’t meet Fanny.

Our drive back to Wick was just as pleasant, looking out at the nearby Orkney Islands & we arrived at our hotel with just enough time to organise ourselves for dinner. Official sunset in Wick for the longest day of the year is 10.22pm. Sunrise is at 4.05am. (It is 11 pm & it’s still not dark). Solstice is actually today the 20^th not 21^st June because we had a leap year. Another great day – exhausted again.