| Famous Loch
Ness. No monster was sighted. (Well, except for the fake ones in front of the tourist
shops around the lake.) Those people have been living off of the legend of the monster for
hundreds of years. |
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| Some info about Loch
Ness. It is quite cold year round (yes, I felt it), but because of its great depth of
over 400 feet, it never freezes. The loch is 24 miles long and a mile wide in
places. There is a considerable amount of peat in the lake, giving it a blackish
appearance. A perfect place for a monster to hide. |
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| These are the ruins of Urquhart
Castle. I think this was the original Loch Ness monster tourist trap. But
seriously, this castle was a fort reinforced in the late 13th century by Edward 1st of
England. (Remember the movie "Braveheart"? He was the mean old English
king, aka Longshanks.) He lost the fort when William Wallace was giving him trouble in
Scotland, but got it back in a bloody battle. (Well, it was bloody for the Scottish owners
who were killed.) The Scots got it back when William the Bruce became king of
Scotland in 1306. People fought over it for centuries and it was eventually blown up in
the latter part of the 17th century so the Jacobites couldn't use it. (Or perhaps it
was destroyed as part of an elaborate insurance scam. Hmm...) |
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| Two sheep in a field near the
castle. No wait, they're monsters! Yeah, that's it. Two Loch Ness monster
sheep! I had to take this picture from far away because I feared for my
life. They are very ferocious beasts with pointy horns and nasty fangs. The one
on the left ate a small child while we were there. |
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| This is a fake catapult. Well,
actually it is a real catapult. It just isn't an original catapult. It's a
replica. It was not used to knock down the walls of the castle, which is a good thing
since it faces the wrong direction. All it would be able to hit would be the sheep in
the field...er, I mean the evil Loch Ness monster sheep. |
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| This guy is doing time for getting
caught littering on the castle grounds. |
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