september 18

Day 18

Once in Inverness, nothing better than visit the Loch Ness. The lake is about 8 kilometer southwest of the city, connected by the river through a canal, and then to the North Sea.

It must have been a big engineering enterprise to do the canal, as it connects the Loch Ness to the Loch Lochy, the Loch Linnhe to the west side of the country. It follows the geological fail that runs along the lochs. That makes the area instable and subject to earthquakes. The last was so close as 2005.
Of course, there is a tour in Inverness that takes you there. What actually made my mind to take it was that the tour would take us to the Corrimony Cairn, which in other way I would never get there. Corrimony is far and there’s no easy access to the area. And the opportunity of visiting the Loch Ness is something one should say yes.
So I took the bus and did the whole tour that included a tour in the “Loch Ness Visitor Center”, that make you sure you are not about to find any Plesciosaurus there, although are eager to sell you everything related to it and more...

Corrimony Cairn

Next visit was the Corrimony Cairn, 8 and half miles from there. The Cairn was built in the Bronze Age, some 4.000 years ago. It follows pretty much of the same features of the

Camster Round Cairns, with a distinction: an eleven stone circle around it, that would relate it with the Bryn Celli Dou in Wales. But while there the stones were removed, apparently for a switch of the local religious preferences, in Corrimony they seem to be part of the whole thing. It consists in a round cairn, covered in stones with a narrow and low entrance to a round chamber. There is a stone circle around it.

The structure collapsed at some point, so the ceiling is uncovered now. The cairn were bounded by a circle of kerbstones, but there is no much trace of them for the same reason. Today only the entrance stones are apparent.

The cairn is said to be aligned to the winter solstice, but of course, I had no means to prove it. There are studies linking the astronomical symbolism with the orientation of some sites. Unfortunately, the evidences were not enough to give substancial support for such theories apart from Newgrange and Bryn Celli. Mostly other sites carry such complex alignments that is almost impossible to make it clear if they are intentional or just random. Sounds familiar? This is the same problem we have in finding Ley Lines.

Another curious features of the Corrimony Cairn is some carving in the stones, some in cup shape marks - in a slab that apparently were displaced and now lay in the top of the cairn, and in one of the stones of the circle. This are three lines forming an arrow. There are some other carvings that I could not tell if it was intentional or not. Both were clearly drawn in the stones. No slab was left inside the chamber, which is unlikely, and makes one wonder if it was not taken. The slab on the top of the cairn could be a capstone or a lintel inside the cairn, maybe the excavators that worked there in the 50’s could tell us a better story.

Uquhart Castle

The next stop of the visit was the Uquhart Castle, that takes hold of the whole scenary over the lake. It is the place that holds the power from the area since the age of the Celtic tribes. It is said that Saint Columba been to the place when it was the house of a Celtic chief of the area. From there it changed from hands a couple of times, were attacked by Edward II from England, were taken by force by the Norse-Irish family MacDonald, and later were given to Sir John Grant of Freuchie, chief of the Clan Grant by King James IV.

Later it was deliberately blown in the time of the Jacobine revolts. What we have now is just the ruins of that time, like many castles in the United Kingdom. The place is well located in the middle of the lake, in its wider area.

The tour experience is not the best but seems to be the best way to get to some places. I still want to do the Orkney trip, on Monday. I hope it works. Until there, I must go to Clava, which is close, and deserves a visit, and some other places around.

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