City in the Highlands.

The torrential rain that we had all night eased mid morning so the first job of the day was to move to a higher vantage point in the camp when a space became available. Well we got probably the most prominent site in camp and after all our efforts we still couldn’t get TV or Internet. Only one thing for it but to catch the bus into Inverness and take a laptop with us.

Inverness railway station built by the Inverness and Aberdeen joint railway.

This bell was made in 1858 when the Inverness railway station opened.

We finally caught the midday bus along with 6 German tourists who are also staying at the camp. Arriving in town we set about trying to find a coffee bar with Wi-Fi . We tried Costa without success and then spotted good ole McDonalds. We asked at the counter if they had Internet available to which they said they did. We then had to order some lunch to keep the manager smiling, as she had just asked a lady to leave who had only bought a coffee and had been using the internet for an hour.

Inverness covered Victorian Markets since 1870.

Views along the River Ness through Inverness.

At first Dot had trouble connecting to the internet and being only on battery was running out of time. A quick word to the manager and she sent up one of her staff to assist, Dot never realised that an initial registration was required. Finally on the internet Dot had just enough time to put up last night’s blog and down load all the important emails before the battery ran out. At least we had the emails to check back at camp.

Views along the River Ness through Inverness.

Inverness Castle.

We then spent a bit of time wandering around “The City in the Highlands”. We had spotted the other end of the Caledonian Canal, (another staircase flight) when we drove through town yesterday but couldn’t find any tourist signs pointing us in the right direction today, only the river Ness.This was quite interesting as in a very short distance there were 7 bridges across the river, a couple of which didn’t appear that old.  According to a tourist map we spent most of our time in “The Old Town” with all it’s old buildings and the Victorian indoor market which began in 1870. There is some new redevelopment around Falcon Square where there is the Eastgate Centre, a modern shopping mall.

An old bank building maybe with a new lease of life?

Inverness Town Hall with it's fine copper clad lights outside.

Heading back to camp we caught the 2.55pm bus not thinking anything of it. We realised after a while that the driver was taking a different route which lead him to the local college or high school. Around Scotland they don’t put on special buses for the school runs ,they just get incorporated into the scheduled services. A 10 minute wait and then the bus filled up with loud cackling, boisterous teenagers. Hmmmm! We had been warned at another camp not to catch any bus around 3pm because of this. Must remember next time! We then had just enough time to run a load through the laundry before it got busy and they were queuing up for the clothes dryer.