Another really nice day, slightly cooler but the sun shined on us all day.
We decided we would spend today exploring Inverness so set off for the hop-on-hop-off bus which does a circuit of the town and goes out as far as the Muritown Locks. It takes about an hour and we did the whole circuit without getting off, we had great seats as we were the only passengers on board!
After that we set off on the Inverness Historic Trail, taking in all the major sites of Inverness. The walk took us from the castle, all around the town taking in sights such as the library, the old high church where they have the two stones that were used for executions one with a hole in it that the condemned man was tied to and one with a V in the top where the executioner rested his rifle. We visited the Victorian Market where they have had to update the sign, it had said the Queen Victoria is the longest serving monarch and they have added …… until April 2015 when Queen Elizabeth II took that record at the age of 89.
By the time we had competed this walk it was lunch time so we went to a pub on the river, the starter was nice, but to be honest the main was quite disappointing but it re-fuelled us so that we were ready to set off on the River Ness and Caledonian Canal circuit which is a 7 mile walk along both the canal and river Ness.
The start of the walk criss crossed the Ness Islands on the walk down we watched a seal fishing for his lunch. The route took us along the banks of the canal to the spectacular series of locks at Muirtown which we had seen on the bus, all the way to the very end of the canal at Clachnaharry where the canal meets the waters of Beauly Firth where it was very windy. We were glad to get back into the shelter of the land, the route then returned us to the river Ness and a short walk back to the cottage by about 6.30 where we sat down for a well earned rest.
