Loch Lomond and the Trossachs

The most historic national park in Scotland

AFTER visiting the Outer Hebrides, I caught the ferry back to Skye, where I had parked my car, and drove to a town called Inveruglas on the banks of Loch Lomond.

Inveruglas, in the low sunshine

Loch Lomond is more than 30 km long and is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. It is really beautiful: narrow, and steep-sided in the north and with many islands toward the southern end, which is wider and lies in gentler terrain.

A broken tree on the banks of Loch Lomond

There’s a good view of Loch Lomond from the top of a mountain called Ben Lomond.

Loch Lomond from Ben Lomond, looking toward the southern end of the lake. Photograph by Colin, 17 August 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

A mountain in Aotearoa New Zealand that yields a similar view over Lake Wakatipu is also named Ben Lomond. For a Kiwi, it’s fascinating to learn where names like that come from!

The southern end of the lake is only a short distance from Glasgow and is held to lie in the Lowlands, the traditional term for the gentler and more densely populated part of Scotland.