The quest was the idea of the revamped Loch Ness Centre, the Highlands’ visitor attraction that reopened in June this year, and it seemed an opportunity to better understand the loch’s legend and experience the water’s ever-variegated moods.
Seventeen prime locations on the loch’s banks had been earmarked as observation points and around 200 Nessie hunters had turned up to decode every ripple and identify anomalies that couldn’t be explained. Another 300 were watching on live stream webcams from as far away as New Zealand and Japan.
“Please don’t go swimming in the loch — it’s not a good idea,” Alan, founder of voluntary research outfit Loch Ness Exploration, had told us at that morning’s briefing, before we left to stake out the world’s most elusive cryptid. Despite the warning, one American was so enthusiastic he dove into the murk head first in a wetsuit and snorkel.
It’s been 90 years since Mrs Aldie Mackay, manager of the former Drumnadrochit Hotel (now home to the Loch Ness Centre), first reported seeing a “whale-like fish” in the water, and today, more visitors than ever devote themselves to solving the mystery.
The loch reels in around 1.6 million visitors each year and some estimates put a value on Nessie tourism at around £41 million annually. As a result, great swathes of volunteers had arrived, accompanied by eager press from the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and France. If the monster was planning to make an appearance, they’d certainly get a reception.
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/my-weekend-with-the-monster-hunters-loch-ness-scotland/
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Publish date : 2023-09-11 03:00:00
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