Day #15 Loch Ness Monsters
Today we had a long bus ride through the Scottish highlands. The mountains and lochs were beautiful. Lochs are lakes by the way.
We stopped for an hour in Glencoe. This location was very scenic and apparently was significant in battles as well, dating back to the Vikings. I am unsure of the details because Jacob sucks at explaining things. He pretty much told us we had an hour for a bathroom break, gift shop and something about a witch.
We drove a couple more hours to Loch Ness. Loch Ness was pretty cool. It is 23 miles long and extremely deep, 760 feet in some areas. What I thought was interesting was the steep drop-off. Only about 20 feet from shore it was 100 feet deep. It is shaped like a giant bathtub. The temperature of the water is 40 degrees Fahrenheit summer and winter. It never freezes and the water is very dark. Visibility is only about 12 feet due to the color of the peat soil.
As for the Nessie sightings, we heard a lot of theories on what causes the illusions. There were also a lot of explanations for the photo hoaxes. Our boat driver was actually a scientist.
After our boat ride we had an hour in the souvenir shops. I ran into Tom Tom who pointed me in the direction of an exhibition. I grabbed Jill and Lori on the way. There we met a scientist/ author who did a lot of research on the loch. He took us through his exhibition and signed copies of his book for us.
After Loch Ness we drove to a farm where sheep dogs are trained for herding sheep. These dogs were so impressive. I feel like an inadequate dog owner. My dog still lays protest poops in the house. The handler had special whistles and calls for each dog. They all had their own commands. I will say that the handler was kind of shady. He got on a soap box about how environmentalists are running him out of business. Let’s just say that he was very opinionated and wasn’t afraid to share. He showed us how to sheer a sheep. Some of the students tried it. He told them that you only have to be careful near their stomach and that it doesn’t matter if you cut them in other places. Heartless. I did not have lamb for dinner that night. Another thing that was neat was how they train the puppies. They use ducks. There was a puppy who was only eight weeks old chasing ducks all over the place. The handler told us that there were 32 dogs on his farm and all the males were trained to herd the sheep. The females are strictly for breeding. He showed us puppies that were only three days old.
