Urquhart Castle

This morning we met the Lock Keeper at Fort Augustus early, just after they started Lord of the Glens (built to just fit these locks) down.  He said we could follow in a few minutes - they were just waiting on a barge arriving.  The barge took about 20 minutes, then when it did arrived stopped to pump out its waste tank and take on water.  So we ended up starting the locking process about 10:30 after standing by not really doing anything for most of that time.  We did manage to empty our bins and take on more fresh water while we waited.

Locking down went very smoothly, and CyclopsJnr went off exploring again while the grown ups pulled the boat through.  We decided to have lunch in Fort Augustus before setting off, and CyclopsJnr ended up with a free hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) because they made it by mistake and "looks like a boy who would like a hot chocolate"!


We headed along Loch Ness as far as Urquhart Bay after lunch.  Sadly the visitor pontoon at Urquhart Castle is damaged, so we instead moored in the harbour and biked round.  We enjoyed looking around the castle, and especially seeing very tame Pheasants, and a Robin, close to.  

We had dinner on the boat this evening as although there are some nice places in Drumnadrochit, it would be a bit of mission getting back to the harbour in the dark (with a tired boy to take account of).