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This is a view of Ben Nevis I took the night before, on our way back to Fort William from Glenfinnan:
Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles, at 1400 feet, and the summit is only a few miles walk from sea level. If you look closely, the mountain on the right shows some cloud between a lower peak and the actual top of Ben Nevis. That's pretty near the actual summit. Note the fresh snow. The next morning, it was brighter than it was for this pic, but the clouds were lower.
I don't think we realized it, but we passed a series of locks on the way out to Glenfinnan, the night before. So in the morning after breakfast we went back that direction to see them.
Neptune's Staircase is a series of eight locks on the Caledonian Canal in the Highlands of Scotland. It was constructed between 1803 and 1822, and refurbished, including new gates and extensive repairs to masonry, between 1995 and 2005. The locks raise boats 64 feet.
Note the boat in the lock, with the water level all the way up. There seems to be some current in the water below the gates, but I'm not sure if that's because the water is draining, or if that's just regular flow. I don't think the lock is draining, because I don't see anybody at the control box, on the left.
This is the Defiance heading into the lowest lock.
The gate controls, obviously.
My dad operating them. I would guess they do that fairly frequently, for (to) the tourists. My dad thought it was fun. I was glad he did it, rather than me, because I wanted to take pictures!
Locks, swing bridges! This place has everything!
This is a railroad bridge, which the "Hogwarts Express" goes over, on its way out to Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Did I mention it was raining? At least it wasn't windy. The last calm day for quite a while.
Closing. You can see Fort William climbing the hill in the background on the right.
Then we walked all the way up to the top.
Fishing boats and pleasure craft tied up near the upper lock.
Looking down from the uppermost gates. All eight locks, both swing bridges closed, and the Defiance tied up. You can see Loch Linnhe in the distance. That's a long narrow sea loch that stretches about 35 miles to its mouth at the island of Mull.
They turned this to open the valves which let water flow through into or out of the locks.
Back in town, the Ben Nevis distillery was open, so we stopped for a looksee on our way out. Not too exciting, but we picked up a little whisky to take home. It wasn't too good.
Then we visited Castle Urquhart on the shore of Loch Ness.
We walked down the hill to the castle, and made a quick detour to see the big trebuchet up close.
They were doing some work on the entry bridge.
The present ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though built on the site of an early medieval fortification. Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century. It was subsequently held as a royal castle, and was raided on several occasions by the MacDonald Earls of Ross. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Despite a series of further raids the castle was strengthened, only to be largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces, and subsequently decayed. In the 20th century it was placed in state care and opened to the public: it is now one of the most-visited castles in Scotland.
Tourists on Deepscan, of the Loch Ness Project.
Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles, at 1400 feet, and the summit is only a few miles walk from sea level. If you look closely, the mountain on the right shows some cloud between a lower peak and the actual top of Ben Nevis. That's pretty near the actual summit. Note the fresh snow. The next morning, it was brighter than it was for this pic, but the clouds were lower.
I don't think we realized it, but we passed a series of locks on the way out to Glenfinnan, the night before. So in the morning after breakfast we went back that direction to see them.
Neptune's Staircase is a series of eight locks on the Caledonian Canal in the Highlands of Scotland. It was constructed between 1803 and 1822, and refurbished, including new gates and extensive repairs to masonry, between 1995 and 2005. The locks raise boats 64 feet.
Note the boat in the lock, with the water level all the way up. There seems to be some current in the water below the gates, but I'm not sure if that's because the water is draining, or if that's just regular flow. I don't think the lock is draining, because I don't see anybody at the control box, on the left.
This is the Defiance heading into the lowest lock.
The gate controls, obviously.
My dad operating them. I would guess they do that fairly frequently, for (to) the tourists. My dad thought it was fun. I was glad he did it, rather than me, because I wanted to take pictures!
Locks, swing bridges! This place has everything!
This is a railroad bridge, which the "Hogwarts Express" goes over, on its way out to Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Did I mention it was raining? At least it wasn't windy. The last calm day for quite a while.
Closing. You can see Fort William climbing the hill in the background on the right.
Then we walked all the way up to the top.
Fishing boats and pleasure craft tied up near the upper lock.
Looking down from the uppermost gates. All eight locks, both swing bridges closed, and the Defiance tied up. You can see Loch Linnhe in the distance. That's a long narrow sea loch that stretches about 35 miles to its mouth at the island of Mull.
They turned this to open the valves which let water flow through into or out of the locks.
Back in town, the Ben Nevis distillery was open, so we stopped for a looksee on our way out. Not too exciting, but we picked up a little whisky to take home. It wasn't too good.
Then we visited Castle Urquhart on the shore of Loch Ness.
We walked down the hill to the castle, and made a quick detour to see the big trebuchet up close.
They were doing some work on the entry bridge.
The present ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though built on the site of an early medieval fortification. Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century. It was subsequently held as a royal castle, and was raided on several occasions by the MacDonald Earls of Ross. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Despite a series of further raids the castle was strengthened, only to be largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces, and subsequently decayed. In the 20th century it was placed in state care and opened to the public: it is now one of the most-visited castles in Scotland.
Tourists on Deepscan, of the Loch Ness Project.
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 06:25 am (UTC)From:64 feet is a lot of water to run in and out in such a seemingly short distance. The locks just don't look high enough to move a boat 8 feet up or down!
I did finally research why the Isle of Mull sounded familiar to me. From wikipedia: Wildlife film-maker Simon King went on location to Mull for the first week of Springwatch with Bill Oddie, where he observed a resident family of white-tailed eagles – a male and female named Skye and Frisa respectively, and their two chicks, Itchy and Scratchy
I remembered the eagle names from watching that documentary.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:37 pm (UTC)From:In the first picture of the locks, you see the boat in the last lock, with the water almost all the way up. Notice the control box on the left. It's about five feet tall, so the water level looks more than eight feet up, to me.
Funny you remembered that from the TV show.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 11:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:10 pm (UTC)From:http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/may/19/martinwainwright.uknews2
no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 04:18 pm (UTC)From:We have a constant battle against litter being left on Britain's highest mountain - but this elevates being a litter lout sky high into a completely different category. We are now trying to track down who took it there.
And then...
He plans another, so far unspecified, spectacular to mark his 65th birthday this year.
... Just make sure you don't get ticketed for it.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 06:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-03-16 10:09 pm (UTC)From: