Jul 19

No alarms needed to go off this morning as our Loch Ness tour wasn't until after 10, but the leaders did get up around 7 am. Followed very slowly by Scouts who started crawling out of their sleeping bags about 7:45. It was another late night, which they are going to pay for in the long run. We'll see how this routine goes at camp.

By about 9:30 everybody was ready to head into town with their lunches and day packs. We went to the bus terminal in town to catch a tour bus, which we almost filled by ourselves. We took 28 of the 33 seats on the bus, and luckily for us they decided that was enough and gave us the bus to ourselves.

The tour was the usual narrated tour, with Scottish history and such on the way out to the Loch. They dropped us out on the Loch where we caught a boat to travel up the Loch to Urquhart Castle. We only had an hour at the castle which I think was about 30 minutes too short. The same tour bus picked us up at the Castle and drove back towards Inverness, stopping at a Loch Ness historical centre where we were given the complete story of the Loch Ness monster, as well as some time in the gift shop of course.

The tour bus took us back into Inverness and dropped us off right at the Scout hall. A very nice bonus, saving us the 15 min walk from the bus terminal. We immediately gathered up our laundry, which the Scouts had all bagged up in the morning, and walked downtown to the laundromat. It was very busy, so only a portion of the group was able to get started. Most of the Scouts made arrangements for somebody to take care of getting laundry into the machines for them while they got their last chance shopping in Inverness. Many thanks to Rhiannon who organized most of the laundry for our group before camp.

There wasn't time to take the laundry back to the hall before dinner so everyone is having dinner at Smith & Jones pub again, with their laundry bags sitting with them for dinner. This time we made it into the pub by 5 so we didn't have to rush to get out of there by 7.

After dinner the Scouts all went back to the hall. There was a shower schedule set up and if not showering they spent some time cleaning up their backpacks. Then there was quite a bit of free time for the Scouts to play outside on the playground.

We did try to get them to bed a little earlier since they are getting up at 6, so we called lights out just before 11. A few Scouts insisted on talking for a while, but it was pretty quiet by about 11:15.