Touring Through Invermoriston, Highlands, Scotland

By Simon Haughtone

Touring through Invermoriston, Highlands, Scotland offers a fine opportunity to see Loch Ness - rumored to be home to the legendary sea monster - and the surrounding region. The areas around the village, and Invermoriston itself, are a noted tourist destination for many traveling in the Highland local government area. This is because of its history and wild natural beauty.

Invermoriston sits on the western shore of Loch Ness, and life today mainly centers on the tourism industry, though this wasn't always so. As in many areas of Highland, the population once relied on forestry-type activities. Evidence of this is shown in the fact that there once was an active local sawmill, first established around 1640.

It is not surprising, though, that tourism supplanted forestry in Highland, because there are certainly plenty of things to see and do in a region famous for the scenic nature of its geography and natural resources. Exploring is made all the easier due to the fact of Invermoriston's location near the A82 motorway and it only being around 26 miles from Inverness, the capital of Highland.

The village also offers a good base camp from which to start out on a hike along the Great Glen Way, a 73 mile long hiking trail. Most tourists travel along the trail in a west-to-east direction, owing to the strong winds which blow in from the nearby North Sea. Invermoriston also boasts a couple of items of interest, including a well supposedly rid of demons by Columba, a Catholic saint of the 6th century.

The village also resides in Highland, the local government area of Scotland responsible for this part of the country. It's also the largest government area in not only Scotland but also the whole United Kingdom. It has a population of around 218,000 people. Highland is the result of reorganization in structure of government areas which first began in 1973, leading to its own reclassification in 1975. The village of Invermoriston and Highland make fine examples of what typical Scottish living can be.