#NEPTUN STAIRCASE FULL#

Many folk take a cruise on the Lord of the Glens which can handle both this inland waterway and the open sea. Perhaps you’d simply like to enjoy one of the available day trip excursions. If this is you, it’s recommended that you allow two and a half days at least to make the entire journey.Another option is to stay on a hotel boat or barge. Of course, some folk bring their own boat onto the canal, others look to hire a cruiser or charter a yacht.

#NEPTUN STAIRCASE FULL#

If you are travelling its full length, you can also count off the four aqueducts, 10 bridges and 29 locks that are part of this massive construct. The short man-made sections lead you into four stunning Scottish lochs, namely Dochfour, Ness, Oich and Lochy. Whether you want to be on the water itself, or to simply enjoy the sights, there are a wide range of activities to be enjoyed. Major restoration projects took place in the decade from 1995, leaving the canal as the amazing attraction it is today, with between 250,000 and 330,000 tourists visiting the area each year. Move into the 1930s and we find paddle steamers taking visitors along the Great Glen.

Exactly a century on from the first survey, Queen Victoria sailed the canal, and it was used for naval vessels during the first world war. Two decades later, substantial repair work was needed in places. It was eventually opened in 1822 at a cost of more than £900,000. The man-made canal forms 22 miles of this, and features 29 locks. Together with its four lochs, this stunning waterway is over 60 miles long. The task of surveying and building it was then given to Thomas Telford and William Jessop. However, it was a full 30 years later that parliament legislated for its construction. This offered an alternative to the dangerous route north through the Pentland Firth and around the treacherous waters of Cape Wrath. Allowing access from the Atlantic and Loch Linnhe, and stretching from Fort William to Inverness, it was to provide safe shipping out into the North Sea. Following a natural geological fault line, it was way back in 1773 that James Watt first surveyed the route that would eventually become the Caledonian Canal.

Neptun staircase