The 75th birthday of a Loch Ness monster sighting
The 75th birthday of a Loch Ness monster sighting
December 20, 2008
Paul Mansfield
Times Online
T'S A DODGY photograph. But the grainy black-and-white picture of a “monster” in Loch Ness (above), published in the national press in April 1934, set the public's imagination racing and defined the popular image of the legendary creature, a year after an even more blurred picture was first released.
Everyone from tartan-clad Americans to Scots keen to witness part of their heritage have flocked to the lake shores ever since. And the debate has raged over Nessie's existence, even in the face of evidence that the monster is no more than a storytale.
Where would Loch Ness be without Nessie? Better off, possibly. The roads around this lovely lake are filled to bursting each summer with cars and coachloads of monster-seekers. So if you really want to see it at its best, go out of season, as we did.
We took the Caledonian Sleeper up from London, a wondrous experience that has you nodding off in your berth around Watford and waking up in the middle of the Highlands. Outside, in a landscape of gorse, rushing streams, and misty mountains, two stags stood under a low grey sky. We picked up our hire car in Fort William and headed north.
Fort Augustus is an attractive little town at the foot of Loch Ness and it has one of the best hotels I've stumbled across in a while, the Lovat Arms. Bright, cosy rooms have flat-screen TVs, and look across the canal to the loch. There's an excellent brassiere, and the public rooms have been allowed to keep their Victorian charm, with wood panelling, comfy sofas and roaring log fires.
With walking maps from the town's tourist office we headed east along the quiet side of Loch Ness, where a B-road snakes through tiny villages and up into the mountains. At Suidhe viewpoint the trail looked down over the Great Glen, which slashes through the Highlands from coast to coast. Trails led off through the pines and across bog land to craggy wind-blasted peaks.
In the pale winter sunshine Loch Ness seems by turns as delicate as a Renaissance landscape and as elemental as a Norwegian fjord. We took a tour boat from Fort Augustus. The 16th-century Urquhart Castle loomed over the loch like a ghost in the mist. The loch's size - big enough to drain all the water in the UK; long enough to view the curvature of the earth - inspires awe. The captain's commentary, thankfully, had scarcely a mention of Nessie.
That came, in spades, at Drumnadrochit, the village on the western bank of Loch Ness that's at the centre of the monster industry. At the Loch Ness Centre a walk-through exhibit describes how early photographs created a myth that the loch's tourist industry was happy to go along with. But there's no longer any real argument: “sightings” and photographs of the monster are all either hoaxes or natural phenomena.
To get Nessie out of our heads we headed for Glen Affric. The eastern end of this nature reserve is a dense landscape of tiny valleys, hedgerows and stone villages. Walking along the Affric river we followed the smell of woodsmoke to the village of Tomich, where a Victorian hunting lodge is now a snug hotel. The walls were hung with old photographs; the bar had a selection of malt whiskies. Then it was back along Loch Ness in the gloaming, casting - despite ourselves - a quick eye out over the water.
Need to know
The Caledonian Sleeper (08457 550033, www.firstgroup.com) has returns (two sharing) from £189pp. Car hire from Slipway Autos, at Fort William (01397 772404) from £30 a day. The Lovat Arms Hotel, Fort Augustus (0845 4501100) has doubles from £85, B&B
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