Sun, 06 Oct 2002

author Tim	location Oban, Argyllshire, Scotland
posted 17:51 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Scotland/Scotland 1 ( all photos )

Loch Ness ( No photos )
Well, I got in some better sleep, but the girls still managed to find a good snorer. Meaghan was planning on throwing pillows and apples, and Liz's evil plans were not printable here!
Since the rest of my room was up at about 6:30am, I got up nice and early and tidied up the car while Meaghan eventually dragged herself out of bed.
We took a slow drive north around Loch Ness, up the quiet side before coming back down the busy side. Wow! The scenes were all of course fantastic, and the return of fantastic weather meant blue skies with some nice low-lying cloud in the middle of the Loch. There's nothing much to say about it that you haven't already heard, only that it's much larger than I ever thought. We managed to avoid the tourist areas this time, so no cheap Nessy garbage. I'm sure we'll manage to find them again...
We then drove back south past where we stayed last night, and down to the sea-side town of Oban. The biggest thing for miles, the Lonely Planet book still describes it as "there isn't much to see or do", but we still think it quite nice. The Youth Hostel here is four stars - very nice, and we have a view over the bay. Not bad for only £2 (we filled up a youth hostel reward card, and get a free night. Paying a little extra got us our own room).
Not really an overly adventurous day, we're planning a trip off to the Isle of Mull tomorrow - we can see it across the bay. Cooking some veges and potato bake for dinner, and will have a nice relaxing night in with hopefully some decent sleep for all. Now they only have to poke me if I snore and I usually shut up!

(customised)