Inveraray & Neptune's Staircase

On the weekend of 17 October we went to Inveraray which is a small town near Oban. We wanted to climb the mountain/hill that overlooked the town. The photo on the left is the hill we climbed and you can just see the tower at the top. So we drove to the starting point of the hike at Inveraray Castle (see photo). As we started our walk Matt threw the tennis ball into a hedge and I had to get it, when I got it, I threw it and it landed in the hedge on the other side of the road. I then had to climb through that hedge and disappeared completely inside the hedge, climbed out the other side and got the ball. I nearly got stuck.

We started climbing and got into the forest where it was dark but you could see where you were going. We saw lots of trees, bushes and streams running down the side of the mountain and we saw a young deer but it ran away before we could take a photo. We also saw some sheep. Then we left the forest as we got close to the top of the hill and it was sunny. Mum was the first one up.

When we reached the top we climbed into the tower and took some pictures of the view below. We saw quite a long way away, we could see other mountains and hills and we saw reflections of the trees in the Loch below the mountain. It was a still day so the Loch was very calm. The view was great - I felt like jumping into the Loch from where I was. Then we went back down - us kids ran most of the way down the mountain and I was first down. This is the tower on top of the hill.

Then we drove to Neptune's Staircase at Fort William. At one end of the staircase there is a Loch which eventually leads to the Irish Sea and the other end eventually gets to the Atlantic Ocean. When there is a boat that needs to get from the lower Loch to the higher Loch the bridge over the road swings to one side so the boat can get to the first gate of Neptune's Staircase. The staircase has 8 gates. When the boat is in the first lock gate a man presses a button to make the bottom of the next lock gate lift up a little boat. This lets water into the lock gate where the boat is and that makes the water the same level. So then they open the lock gate and the boat drives through to the next step/stair or lock gate. Then they shut the first gate and get ready to open the next gate when the water is level. It happens 8 times before the boat gets up to the other Loch. The height difference between the lower Loch and the higher Loch is 20m. It used to be a waterfall before they made it the lock system. We saw a boat go from the 5th stair to the top of the staircase. If you want to get from the top to the bottom it's exactly the same. On top of each gate there are walkways for people to cross from one side to the other side. We all walked over. I liked watching the boat through the staircase to the top.

While we were at Neptune's Staircase we also saw the highest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis). You can ski down Ben Nevis.

Loch Ness & up North

We drove for 3 hours to our Loch Ness hotel. We slept that night. We went for a little walk around the hotle. Then we had breakfast. We drove for 2 mins and walked up Craigmonie hill (150 metres high - this is the view from it) and then to Divach Falls - this took from 9am until 12.30pm - it was a looonnngg walk. We walked back to the car and drove to Urquhart Castle. It was built in the 1200's and the castle is in ruins. It was facing Loch Ness.
I think you will ask "Did you see the loch ness monster?" We did see the loch ness monster. Then we drove to Inverness and had lunch.

We went driving further north after lunch and came to the town of Shin. We walked to a waterfall called the Falls of Shin. We saw salmon jumping up the waterfall. One jumped all the way up to the top of the waterfall but he fell back down again. Other salmon were jumping part of the way up and then slithering back down again. Then we went to the playground equipment and tried the circuit - we all had a go doing our fastest. Then we had an icecream.

Then we drove to the highlands -we saw massive mountains and we saw some little creeks running down the side of the mountains and some little waterfalls right next to the road.

The roads were very windy and we saw a van that had gone too fast round a corner and hit another car. He was lucky there was a car to smash into because otherwise he would have driven over the cliff to the ocean...the Atlantic Ocean actually. We saw ambulance, constabulary (which means police) and fire engines racing to the crash. We could see all the drivers and they were alive but the car bonnets were very munted.

Then we got to the west of the Scottish mainland coast and we raced down to touch the water of the Atlantic Ocean - I beat Mum. The beach had lots of pebbles all over it - really smooth and no sand. We threw the rocks in and tried to skim some.
(By the way, we didn't see the loch ness monster.)