The great weather held out as we moved north stopping at a couple more distilleries along the way, and a visit at the famous Loch Ness. A massive lake and cute little town called Fort Augustus just to the south of it. The towns only source of income appears to be around tourism. After a stop in the Loch Ness visitor center for a little showing of why it would be difficult for an actual monster to live in the lake, we were back north. Quickly driving through the town of Inverness that we were not impressed with at all. It made us feel as if we were back in the city versus the rural Scotland we were enjoying so far on the trip.

Loch Ness
I can now say I’ve visited and didn’t see Nessy

The drive ended in Keath. Which is a stop on the Malt Whisky Trail. A nice town were we had to stop into a few hotels before finding one we liked. The Royal Hotel is in an older building and a bit rundown and the bed was a bit softer than previous ones but not by much. So we setup our base here for a couple of days to explore the distilleries of the Speyside region.

 

With so much drinking and eating out we took it easy on our first night with some cheese and fruit from the store for dinner planning to visit a large number of distilleries the next day.