46. Day 41 – Loch Lomond to Fort William and on to Evaton

Tuesday 21 November 2006

It rained all night, in fact our whole trip so far has been raining most of the time. We now know why people from the United Kingdom immigrate to Australia!

After tea, toast and showers we headed out via the tiger claws (used to stop the vehicles from coming in at night) – we tried to get back our deposit of ₤5 on the keys but the office was closed so we left the keys and lost our ₤5.

We left the camping area at 8.50am and drove along Loch Lomond. We jumped out of the Earthroamer and walked to the edge of the lake. Absolutely magnificent even in the rain.

**Pip standing on the shore of Loch Lomond at Luss**

**Road continued to wind its way beside Loch Lomond**

There was snow on the tops of the mountains as we drove along the edge of the Loch. We rang home and were told that there were bush fires in the Blue Mountains at 38°C plus – and here it was 44° Fahrenheit cold and wet.

As we headed towards Ben Lomond we climbed the mountain range just past Loch Tulla. We stopped at a small road side van and talked to two truckies, they were bringing sawdust from the north of Scotland for sale south. Whilst we spoke to the van owner and had a hot chocolate and a hotdog a Dutch couple pulled up in their old Land Rover. The van owner pays ₤800 a year for the licence from the Ian Fleming family who own the land in the area.

**Dick and Pip beside their vehicle at the truck stop**

**A Land Rover pulled up beside us with a couple from Holland**

**Dick at the hot dog stand beside the rod above Loch Tulla**

As we headed towards the Glencoe ski area, there were magnificent rainbows on the hills.

As we reached Loch Leven the sun came out. The beautiful St John’s Church was beside the road at the Ballachulis Bridge. This was true Scottish scenery. The mountains going up into the clouds touched with snow and the beautiful autumn colours on the heather.

Soon we were in Fort William where we stopped for lunch. We had been in Fort William a few years before when we climbed Ben Nevis. There was a simple little parking area which cost a quid and the staff assisted us in moving our vehicle to an area where our 24 foot long Earthroamer would not block other vehicles, everyone was really friendly.

We purchased a Scottish music CD and had a toasted sandwich and coffee in the local café and bought bread and milk from the supermarket. At 1.00pm we were on the road again.

We could see Ben Nevis from the road as we headed towards Inverness.

At Fort Augustus we stopped and walked along the lochs which form part of the Caledonian Canal which links the ocean on the west side of Scotland with the ocean on the east.

Dick reminded Pip how he’d flown little Delta India Kilo helicopter along this valley towards Loch Lomond on his helicopter flight around the world in 1982.

We stopped at the medieval fortress of Urquhart Castle with another beautiful rainbow.

**Sheep & rainbow near Drumnadrochit Village**

Dick searched for the monster; he reckoned he would see it. The best we could do was take a photograph of the monster sign.

**Homes in Inverness as we drove in at sunset at 4pm**

It had started to become too dark to take photographs and at 4.20pm we stopped at Evanton. We bought a pot of tea and refilled the tanks full at .959 pence per litre, the most expensive fuel so far, that is about $2.50AUD per litre – and we complain about fuel costing half that in Australia.

We asked the owners of the petrol station if we could stay in their car park overnight. Pip downloaded the photos while Dick got the TV working. It was nice and cosy inside and dark and wet outside. We even had a glass of wine with our dinner. We saw that the weather forecast on the TV was for a cold and windy night. On the news it mentioned that two students from Aberdeen, not too far away, had died on Sunday climbing near Inverness due to the bad weather.

319kms Today 15,041kms Total

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