Of kayakers, squirrels and tortoises...
This is the vast majority of my Sunday June 8th. It was an unexpected day off work filled with 20,503 steps, a trip to the cathedral (not pictured, sorry) and much ACTIVITY.
It was also the final day of ROCKNESS, a biiiig music festival on the banks of Loch Ness. This is not entirely unrelated to my day.
Behind the cut, circa 60 photos. Out of the possible 200 I actually took.
Having already been awake at 8.30am, and straight down to the cathedral for the morning service (I'm a chorister, woop woop), after lunch brings a new adventure. Kirsten suggested it. I went along with it. And we even got Sammy too. We're going to walk to DOCHGARROCH.
This was not the start of our journey... We'd already been walking 15 minutes and had got through an ice lolly each. However, ice lollies take up hand space so phototaking is tricky. Which is why this is the first photo. :)
This is Torvean golf course. It's huge. (also, I uploaded this photo TWICE. Win)
We were barely 100 metres further when we heard the unmistakeable sound of a large helicopter... Which usually round here means the rescue one, the Sea King. Sadly this camera, despite its many merits, was not provided with a fantabulous zoom lens and I'm skint. Therefore, a rather far-off picture must suffice.
It was an abnormally hot day! (I'm the idiot wearing black).
If you stick by the canal route the whole way, the entire journey looks much like this. (We didn't)
You have been warned.
So green! And blue! And yellow!
Hot or not, I was happy to be out (slathered in sun-cream, I should add. I burn like... Like something that burns. Badly. I have to resort to using 40spf BABY sunscreen so I don't look like a tomato for the next week)
So was Sammy!
... But Kirsten controlled her excitement.
She channelled it into photo-taking skillz instead.
What's to do when your only photographic models hide from you?
Take photos of fields instead, of course.
Having now deviated from the canal and taken the country road (yes, we started singing the inevitable song), we came across this pretty little glade where reforestation was taking place. We originally only ventured in because Sammy saw a squirrel, but it was so beautiful!
10 minutes or so later, we ventured back out onto the road (now become not much more than a tiny path) and saw sky again. Look! The moon!
I'm insanely jealous of the owners of that house. Except for the fact that they don't have a road to their house. At all.
Only cows live here now... I don't know what that once was.
The last stretch before we reach our final destination!
Also, about here, we began to hear the music from Rockness! After all, we were walking in the direction of the loch.
...Aaaand here we are!
For reference, there's nothing much actually AT Dochgarroch, except a primary school, a marina and a rather nice restaurant cum antiques shop. It's just a nice walk.
Oh, and a few tortoises.
Having grabbed some ice creams from the aforementioned restaurant (banoffee flavour... heaven), we sat/lay on the grass beside the A82 and watched the traffic zoom by. And a couple of English kayakers putting their kayaks on top of a landrover.
We'd originally intended to walk home again, but it was getting late because we'd spend so much time getting here. So the twins called their dad and we got a lift home.
Here follows a brief interlude in which we watched Doctor Who and ate pizza.
After tea, we played VOLLEYBALL. Over a washing line. Rather badly. (I won both games I played, bwahahaha)
Inevitably, the ball fell into the gap between house and shed-like thing where spiders lurk. Being the only non-arachnophobic, I was nominated to get the ball. Here I am, not showing my fear. And... surfing, by the looks of it...
And so game recommenced.
Sammy won against Kirsten. This is her victory pose.
I amused myself by taking pictures around the garden while the twins yelled volleyball-related threats at each other.
However, the adrenaline high of volleyball can only last so long, and soon we craved something more. So we did what every other 18 year old does on the weekends....
We went to the park!
The rather deceptively-named death slide (at least, that's what Kirsten calls it. I say you'd have a VERY hard time dying on it, the cable's so loose on it now your feet practically trail along the ground. The signs call it the Aerial Runway, which isn't much more appropriate, actually)
I saw something pink in the wood chippings (it was a badge. This area is strange... Once I had a fish land on my head here. No joke.)
I have no idea what this face means.
This is the Invernessian-ned pose. Or anywhere-ned/chav
She's such a big kid.
See?! Haha.
Rockness is THAT way... And we can hear Razorlight quite clearly! Who needs to be any nearer?
I don't know where Kirsten went... but this is what she was playing on. I would have gone down that slide too, but it's too enclosed and I don't like it...
Sadly... the seesaw never lies. I am indeed heavier than Kirsten.
Now I feel small....
Try as hard as you like to restrain her, it's only a matter of time before she's back tapping away on that phone! So I ignored that fact and took photos round about.
Smiley graffiti!
If you are Millar 2007, or RFL#1, you're famous. Welcome to the internet.
Since it was now rapidly approaching 10.15pm and Alistair (through the medium of Kirsten's phone) was warning us away from the park after dark... which he has a fair point about... we thought it best to head homewards. Specially since it takes about another half hour to reach there!
This is a tour boat, which heads up Loch Ness towards Urquhart Castle. It's VERY popular in the summer.
Camera to phone in 20 seconds.
Really. I even checked the EXIF data.
It's starting to get dark... but oh so pretty.
... but pretty or not, it's a long walk home. And that's annoying.
No more photos, but on the way home, we got stopped by a German couple in a car looking for a 'cheap hotel near Loch Ness.' It was 10.45pm. The chances of finding one with vacancies who'd take them at that time, specially a CHEAP one, are next to nil. Plus, there are NO hotels on our side of the canal. Well, maybe one. Maybe two. But they aren't cheap.
Anyway, we dutifully sent them back towards the town centre, because that's about all we could do.
And by 11.00, I was home!
A brilliant day... which resulted in surprisingly little sunburn. And a mere 200 or so photos.
Peace out, amis!