The Scottish Highlands & Loch Ness Specifically
One of the guided bus tours that goes through the Scottish Highlands came highly recommended, and I won’t mention them by name as I haven’t been paid to do so. Just kidding, its called Rabbie’s! I find it can be helpful to start off by joshing you a little bit so that you know I’m not some sort of hardass.
My friend Cait and I take the tour together - we have a shared interest in learning about the history and geography of Scotland and have the kind of friendship where we can spend an extended period of time together without needing to converse the whole time.
At the Edinburgh bus station we board a comfortable Mercedes 16 passenger van/bus and our guide begins her narration, walking us through the history of Edinburgh and pointing out local landmarks as we drive through the morning traffic. We drive over the Queensferry Crossing Bridge - an impressive 3 towered cable-stayed bridge that connects North and South Queensferry Crossing, so named for the ferry service established by Queen Margaret (I went to her chapel in the last one!). They had it figured out when it came to naming stuff back then. Some king built a big hall and its white? Guess we’re gonna go with Whitehall! They went too hog wild with the literal names early on over there, and I think that’s why some villages and towns landed with names like Lower Dinglefarthing. The guide tells us that construction on this bridge was completed in 2017 and I realize that in my mind any big bridge surely must have been built before like 1962, which is pretty stupid! This certainly must be the newest major bridge that I’ve been on, and that experience alone was probably worth the price of admission, but fortunately there is more to be experienced throughout the day.
We drive through the area outside of the city, which isn’t technically the Highlands, but is nonetheless rather scenic. After a few days of the kind of weather I feel like I’d be ripped off if I didn’t experience in Scotland - cool, gray, drizzly - we have a bright, sunny day with some playful cloud formations dotting the sky. Our tour guide is a cool lady with dyed blue hair who perfectly balances educational history, personal observations, bone dry sense of humor, and time to reflect on what we’ve learned - all soundtracked by Scottish music. I wish I had taken notes for better retention, but that might have been overdoing it. Plus, between the gentle rumble of the bus engine, the low, soothing voice of the guide, and the peaceful vistas, I spend a good deal of this trip pleasantly slipping in and out of consciousness. I’m awake for the important parts mostly, but Cait brings me up to speed on some mountain we passed where they tested the rock and the rock at the top of the mountain was older than the rock at the base, so the whole mountain must have flipped at some point? I appreciate her letting me remain asleep, because while that is a cool fact, I didn’t need to lay eyes on that one to believe it. We stop in a town called Pitlochry. There is a cat that apparently hangs out in the tour bus parking lot by the pay toilet and by the looks of it he’s eating well.
Up further into the highlands we go, through some of the most ethereal, breathtaking landscapes I’ve ever seen. The lochs start to unfold around us and I understand how people living among this scenery would build a culture and folklore filled with a bunch of magic and shit. Arriving in the town of Fort Augustus, we hop on a ferry boat for a tour of Loch Ness. I board this vessel a playful skeptic when it comes to Nessie and I disembark much closer to being a believer. First off, based purely on vibes, there is something up with this goddamn loch. I am certainly not a weathered, crusty seaman, but I spent a summer working as a deckhand on a boat on Lake Erie which means 1. I get a little too emotional when I hear the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and 2. I can get a decent feel for lakes. Lake Erie? Gross but cool! Lake Michigan? Excellent! Otsego Lake up by Cooperstown? Seems like a good one. Loch Ness? Spooky. We ain’t supposed to be out there.
I stare at the water shaking my head, brow furrowed in discontent and the boat tour guide starts to explain the scientific facts that reinforce my instinct. Loch Ness used to be connected to the North Sea, so a bunch of critters and creatures that aren’t supposed to be in a loch wound up in a loch. Peat from the surrounding mountains washed into the water thousands of years ago, thus creating a section of the loch that is analogous to the ocean’s “Midnight Zone” where light does not penetrate. You know when they pull some messed up, pale, gross protozoan ass looking fish out of the ocean and a scientist is like “hey, check it out - these little assholes are able to live without light”? Well they have that shit in Loch Ness!
The popular theory behind the Loch Ness Monster is that a plesiosaur slithered into yon body of water from the sea during prehistoric times and then some bloke captured a grainy photo a hundred years ago, thus kicking off the craze. The tour guide explains that this may or may not be a possibility, but it seems pretty clear based off of sonar that there are some creatures in the depths like big lampreys that could be considered monster adjacent. I consider this as I sip a scotch from a plastic cup that I purchased from the galley and land at the conclusion that we are likely in the water with some fantastical creatures of the deep, though perhaps they prefer to stay safely hidden away among the peaty depths for fear that upon emergence, some Scotsman will try to eat them with malt vinegar and chips. ZING, GOT ‘EM!
The tour takes us to several other sites of staggering beauty, and we stop to look at some giant, shaggy cows. We drive past the place where William Wallace had some big battle and I prepare to leave Nessie and the cows in the rearview as I prepare to head to the homeland.
