Loch Ness

Loch Ness is twenty-three miles of cold, deep water between Inverness and Fort Augustus. It holds an unhelpful amount of peat-dark volume and an unhelpful amount of souvenir teddies. The loch is the point. The monster is a newspaper cartoon that got out of hand. You can enjoy both if you keep the proportions right.

How to see it

The A82 down the west is the busy one. The B862 / B852 down the east is quieter and, in places, better. Urquhart Castle is the ruin everyone stops at — worth it early, grim in a July coach slot. Urquhart. A boat from the shore is how you feel the size of it. A lay-by selfie is how you feel the traffic.

We named a candle after it because the water has a smell and a mood, not because we have a theory about plesiosaurs. Ness. If you are heading north after, Ullapool is a different loch and a different pace — Ullapool.