Last summer was cold and wet but we hope for a good one this year!

So what's to look forward to in 2006? Not much it would seem. Urquhart Castle & the Cairngorm Funicular Railway are just some examples of the ever growing number of blots on the once beautiful Highland landscapes. Culture in THE CITY (sic) of Inverness has been all but wiped out, as the renowned Balnain House (once advertised as "the home of Highland music") has been closed down due to lack of cash. Not an auspicious start for a bid to be a European "City of Culture". In a similarly loopy endeavour, local councillors seem to think that one of the big problems facing THE CITY of Inverness is its lack of a "Lord Provost" (it only has an ordinary "provost"!) Some of the self-important pompous air-heads should get a grip and worry about bigger issues - like the fact that Highland Council reportedly only has enough cash to repair each part of the road network once every 200 years!

Sadly, for those who do make it here, they find Urquhart Castle's not much but to see anymore but a hideous Nessie spotting bunker buried under a new car park and surrounded by dirty, noisy building site, further polluted as thousands of fume-spurting quarry trucks lugged some 80,000 cubic metres of slag to despoil the renowned beauty spot. It really looks as awful as your worst nightmare. But we have to say, even though the site will never look the same we hope the building work ends soon because it has been unendurable hell watching the place be ruined.

For those planning a holiday around Drumnadrochit, this site will be home to "Nessie's Officially Original Monster Sized Loch Ness Tour Guide" - full details of what to see and where to go when you're around and about Loch Ness. Of course, this being a well balanced website, we'll also give you the low down about places you'll want to go and those you'll want to steer well clear of - like the old village public toilets (now demolished!) At least the new tourist info centre, council point and toilets are open and the previous Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and former Councillor Pat Paterson (together with their colleagues) deserve special thanks for all the hard work they put in to getting this result.

While the full content of this unique (surely an understatement-ED!) new website is being assembled, we suggest a visit to "The Original Loch Ness Exhibition" as, in our opinion, the area's most pro-Nessie exhibition. The adjoining Loch Ness 2000 exhibition is designed by a formally unqualified naturalist and is rather more expensive than the Original Loch Ness Monster Exhibition, but is undoubtedly well suited to visitors who want to know all about worms, plankton and geological and sediment samples from Loch Ness.

Don't forget to look out for a captive sturgeon swimming about in a plastic plesiosaur's pond!

It's amazing!

[lots more links at OchAye!]