Inverness

Loch Ness Without a Car – A Cruise and Urquhart Castle by Bus

A day by bus and boat, from Inverness bus station and back.

The route

Loch Ness is why most people come to Inverness, and you don't need a car to see it from the water and from the shore.

Citylink's 919, the coach down the Great Glen, runs from Inverness bus station to Dochgarroch Lock, the last lock on the Caledonian Canal before the loch. The morning's two-hour cruise sails across Loch Dochfour, past Bona lighthouse and Aldourie Castle, and down Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle and back. After lunch by the lock, the same bus takes you down the loch to walk round the castle you saw from the water. Jacobite's Temptation tour sells a shorter version of this day as one ticket from the same bus station: a coach to the lock, the same boat to Urquhart and an hour ashore. Going by bus gives the castle the afternoon rather than an hour.

Before you go

Book Urquhart Castle
As early as you can for summer: tickets often sell out far in advance, and once they have sold out online none are sold at the castle.
Book Citylink 919 seats
Book all three rides ahead on citylink.co.uk or the Citylink app, the 08:55 out, the one just after 1pm from Dochgarroch to the castle and your coach home from the castle car park, because two of them pick you up partway along their run and in summer can arrive full of people who booked.
Book Jacobite's cruise from Dochgarroch Lock
Book online ahead, especially in summer.

The day

Loch Ness

A day down Loch Ness and back without a car, by boat from Dochgarroch Lock and by bus to Urquhart Castle. The morning is two hours afloat, out onto the loch to see the castle from the water, and the afternoon is the castle itself, on its headland over Loch Ness. Set off from Inverness bus station just before 9am.

Jacobite's cruise from Dochgarroch Lock
An attraction
It's a 16-minute bus ride on Citylink's 919 from Inverness bus station to the Dochgarroch Lock stop, on the lock's side of the A82, then 3 minutes' walk to the canal. Jacobite's 9.45am Contemplation cruise sails across Loch Dochfour, past Bona lighthouse and Aldourie Castle, and down Loch Ness to Urquhart, where it pauses to set down Jacobite's coach-tour passengers. You stay aboard, see the castle from the water and are back by a quarter to twelve for lunch at An Talla, Jacobite's café on the canal bank.
More about Jacobite's cruise from Dochgarroch Lock
22 min by bus, 5 min on foot
Urquhart Castle
An attraction
It's a 22-minute bus ride on the 919 from the same stop, the one just after 1pm, to the castle's own car park, then 5 minutes' walk to the visitor centre: book the 1.30pm entry. The ruin stands on a headland over Loch Ness, fought over in the Wars of Independence and partly blown up in 1692 to keep it from the Jacobites. Walk out past the trebuchet to the Grant Tower and look up and down the loch. The bus home stops in the same car park, with no road to cross.
More about Urquhart Castle

If it rains

Urquhart is mostly open to the sky, with the visitor centre, its shop and café for shelter, and the cruise boats have seats indoors as well as on deck. In steady rain, get off the 919 in Drumnadrochit on the way down the loch, at the stop by the village green, about a mile and a half before the castle. The Loch Ness Experience is a few minutes' walk away, in the old Drumnadrochit Hotel where the monster story began in 1933; it opens most days, 10am to 5pm, and its guided tour takes about an hour. From April to September the 919 at about a quarter to four goes on to the castle, with a later entry booked; otherwise take the bus back to Inverness.

Where to eat