Loch Ness and Loch Dochfour

Loch Ness

There are many websites, books, magazine articles, scientific journals and so on already written about Loch Ness, and deservedly so. This website is not about Loch Ness but as the source of the river Ness it could hardly not be mentioned.

Loch Ness is about 22.75 miles long, (36.6km) stretching through the Great Glen form Fort Augustus at the south end to Lochend (about 7 miles south west of Inverness) at the north end. Loch Ness is the second deepest Loch in Scotland at 754 ft (220m), the deepest is Loch Morar at 1014 ft (309m) which allegedly has a monster aswell (apparently more aggressive than the Loch Ness one). It is also the second largest in terms of surface area at about 21.87 sq miles, the largest is Loch Lomond at 27.46 sq miles.

In terms of volume of water Loch Ness is however the largest by a long way, 263,000,000,000 cubic ft, thats about 1,638,490,000,000 gallons (7,448,160,000,000 litres). This is about three times the size of Loch Lomond and apparently is more water than all the other freshwater lochs and lakes in Scotland and England put together.

The main rivers flowing into loch Ness are:

River Oich (Fort Augustus)
River Tarff (Fort Augustus)
River Foyers (Foyers)
River Farigaig (Inverfarigaig)
River Enrick (Drumnadrochit)
River Coiltie (Drumnadrochit)
River Moriston (Invermoriston)

There are of course many other smaller burns aswell.

All the water from these rivers flows into Loch Ness the only natural outlet of which is the river Ness. So really, the sources of the river Ness are the sources of all these other rivers and burns.

The Caledonian canal meets the loch at Fort Augustus in the South and at Loch Dochfour in the North.

Loch Dochfour

Loch Dochfour is about 1.24 miles (2 km) long and about 430 yards (390m) wide at its widest point. It joins the northern end of Loch Ness by way of a narrow passage about 100 yards (90m) wide. On the Eastern bank is Darroch wood, on the western bank is Dochfour house and Dochfour farm. The A82 from Inverness to Fort Augustus runs tight along the western bank of Loch Dochfour and most of Loch Ness.

The northern end of Loch Dochfour meets the Caledonian canal and our main objective - the river Ness.