05 · Eight hours · from Fort Augustus or Inverness · All year
The east shore
5 photographs · Silent Glen
In short
The single-track side of Loch Ness, which coaches cannot use and most hire cars will not. Foyers, the moor road, and Dores beach at the end of it.
How the day runs
Eight hours, six stops, and none of it fixed.
Open a stop for the detail, or show it on the map. The ones marked optional are offered on the day rather than fixed into it — take them or leave them.
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Start You’ll be collected
Eight o’clock, before the locks open and the village fills.
- 01
Suidhe Viewpoint 30 min
The whole Great Glen behind you before you have finished your coffee.
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Pass by Whitebridge and the old military road
- 02
Falls of Foyers 1 h
Twenty minutes down through the gorge and thirty back up. Proper shoes.
- 03
Lunch, Foyers or Whitebridge 1 h
Booked, or a flask and a bench if the weather is behaving.
- 04
Inverfarigaig and the forestry 20 min
- 05
The single track north 45 min
Passing places, deer, and no coach has ever been down it.
- 06
Dores beach 45 min
Shingle, and twenty-three miles of water back the way you came.
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Culloden Battlefield Optional 1 h 30
If the day has run to time. Twenty minutes on from Dores, and a different kind of place entirely.
Details CloseThe moor where the rising ended on 16 April 1746, in about an hour. The National Trust has marked the lines where they stood and the clan stones sit out on the grass where the dead were buried by name, which is the part that stops people talking. It is not a scenic stop and it does not belong in the middle of a day about a quiet loch — which is exactly why it goes at the end, if there is time and if you want it. Say when you enquire and we will keep the afternoon honest about it.
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End Back at your door
North to Dores, then home — by Culloden if there is time for it and you want it.
Durations rather than times, on purpose. The order moves, stops get longer or get dropped, and the whole thing bends around the weather and around you — Dan will tell you on the morning what the day actually wants to be.
Map and imagery by Google, which sets its own cookies.
The next five days at Falls of Foyers
Met Office ·
Forecasts this far out are a shape rather than a promise, which is the whole reason the day is not fixed until the morning.
Highlights
- The single-track east shore, which coaches cannot use and most hire cars will not
- Suidhe, with the whole Great Glen behind you before you have finished your coffee
- Two hundred feet of water into a wooded gorge at the Falls of Foyers
- The old military road over the moor at Whitebridge
- Dores at the end, and twenty-three miles of water back the way you came
- Culloden on the way home if the day has run to time, and if you want it
What’s included
In the price
- Collection from your door in Fort Augustus or the surrounding areas, and back there at the end
- The car to yourselves for the whole day — one party a day, nobody else aboard
- Dan driving and guiding, for the eight hours
- All mileage and charging
- Free cancellation up to 48 hours before, for a full refund
Not included
- Entry to the Culloden visitor centre, if we add it and you want to go inside. The battlefield itself is open ground.
- Lunch, which we book at Foyers or Whitebridge unless you would rather take a flask and a bench.
- Proper shoes for the Falls of Foyers — twenty minutes down through the gorge and thirty back up.
- Drinks and anything bought at a shop or café on the way round.
The day
Why the other side
The west shore has a castle, a monster exhibition, four coach parks and the A82, and by eleven in the morning it has all of them at once. There is nothing wrong with it. It is simply not quiet, and quiet is what you came for.
The east shore has a road too, and it is barely a road. It runs up over the moor to Foyers, drops through forestry to Inverfarigaig, then narrows to a single track with passing places for the last stretch into Dores. Coaches cannot use it. Most hire cars will not, because the driver ends up watching the wing mirrors instead of the loch.
That is the whole day. Somebody else drives, and you look out of the window.
What you actually see
The Suidhe Viewpoint comes first, twenty minutes from Fort Augustus, and it puts the entire Great Glen behind you before you have finished your coffee. On a clear morning the fault line runs away to the south-west like a scar, which is exactly what it is.
The Falls of Foyers are a proper walk down and a properly hard walk back up. Two hundred feet of water into a wooded gorge, and a Victorian viewing platform closer to the spray than anyone would be allowed to build today.
Dores is the end of it. Shingle at the north end of the loch, looking back down twenty-three miles of water towards where you started. It is the only place you can see the whole thing at once, and we sit there as long as you like.
The honest weather note
This is a west Highland day and the odds of rain on some part of it are good. That is not a problem to be solved. The east shore in low cloud, with the far side gone entirely and the water the colour of pewter, is better than the east shore in sunshine — and the car is warm, the roof is glass, and nobody has to stand about in it.
Book now
Tell us the week. We’ll tell you the weather.
Every day is quoted individually — party size, pick-up point and how far you want to go. Expect a reply from Dan within a working day, and a written itinerary before you pay anything.
Thank you. Dan will reply within a working day.
silentglentours@gmail.comThe other days
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