Rock around the loch

by

Russell Turner

It's not always snowing in the Highlands, whatever the London-based weather reports suggest. And some-times, when the M25 or M1 traffic is struggling through a whole inch of snow, the weather further north can be glorious – as it was early last month.
 OK, at the weekend there’d been lots of white stuff,but by Tuesday it was gone. Better still, I was enjoying a week off work. Time to get the bike out. A trip to the west, my default destination, would have been pushing my luck because the roads could still be icy in places, so I turned south to Loch Ness, a run of just under 100 miles including the distance to Inverness and back from Maryburgh.
 Just getting the twelve miles to Inverness can be a good run. From Maryburgh to Tore you take the A835 – a prosaic name for a road from which you’re almost guaranteed to see buzzards circling overhead, and often red kites too – then the A9 dual carriageway to the Highland Capital. There you have to make a decision:clockwise or anti-clock-wise. I chose clockwise – start slow and finish fast – and threaded my way through the entire width of Scotland’s newest city (a journey that can sometimes take up to ten minutes) to join the B862 Dores road.

Urquhrt Castle

 Again, there’s a choice: take the high road that climbs up Loch Ness side or the low road that runs beside the River Ness and Caledonian Canal for eight miles to Dores. I chose the latter and ambled along at low speed, enjoying the view through the trees and the knowledge that most other people were at work. A mid-week run has that effect.
 At Dores, a little village with a decent pub and a place where several monster sightings have been made, the river has become the loch and there’s another high road/low road decision. I stuck to the low road, stopping along the way to admire Urquhart Castle across the water. That and Eilean Donan Castle at Dornie on the west coast (where part of Highlander was filmed) must be the two most-photographed buildings in Scotland.
 Eventually, even the low road climbs until you reach Foyers, which is more a hamlet than a village but has a good café and a place to park while you check out the falls– spectacular at this time of year when there’s lots of water. The height the road’s climbed can become more apparent further on when you reach Loch Tarff, a reservoir. Several years ago I passed it on a frosty January day when it was completely frozen.
 After that it’s downhill to Fort Augustus where you can amuse yourself watching canal traffic using the locks or enjoy the view, north up the length of the loch. And there’s plenty of pubs and cafés to cater for those essential stops.
 From here the Loch Ness tour heads north up the A82 where,traffic permitting, you can pick up speed and throw the bike around some great twisty roads until slowed by the hairpin turn at Invermoriston. A good detour is to ride south from Fort Augustus to Invergarry and take the loop which comes out at Invermoriston. It’s worth it for the stop at the Glen Garry viewpoint from where you can look south to Lochaber and west to Knoydart – it’s an amazing sight.
 After Invermoriston there’s more twisties to Drumnadrochit, a village that’s doubled in size since I first moved north but which retains its character despite being a tourist must-stop. It features two monster centres,tartan tat shops, cafés, B&B's and hotels and a village green that’s a relaxing place even in the summer when it’s choked with trippers. At Enrick Bridge you can turn west down Glen Urquhart to Cannich and on to Glen Affric where the road peters out in the middle of spectacular nowhere,or continue up the A82 to Inverness. Along the way is another tempting road, a 1 in 3 ascent at Abriachan which offers more great views across Loch Ness and some single-track roads through wild country you wouldn’t believe is only twenty minutes away from Pizza Hut and McDonald’s (if that’s your definition of civilisation).

Enrick Bridge

 And that’s Loch Ness. You should try it sometime. If you’re tempted,on April 16there’s an Easter Egg Run around the loch finishing at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. I can even offer overnight accommodation (to limited numbers). Or you could incorporate a loch run into the Ullapool weekend. You won’t regret it.

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