Neptune's Staircase

At Banavie near Fort William are a series of 8 locks on the Caledonian Canal known as Neptune's Staircase. Designed by Thomas Telford the locks allow boats to climb or fall the 19.5 metres (64 ft) between the level of Loch Linnhe and the Canal. The locks were built in the early 1800s and required twelve men to run, however, in the 1960's they were mechanised and now require only two keepers to run.

This is a really interesting place to visit and can be combined with a walk along the canal, however take care with young children and pets as there are no railings along the waters edge. Located at the locks are two caches, one traditional (Tupperware style) and the other an Earthcache. The first of these required a short search but didn't take long to find. Once we'd grabbed the container and signed the log we were just about to place it back into it's hiding place when we found a second container hidden in the same place. I think that's the first time that's ever happened to us.

An Earthcache doesn't involve finding a container, instead it requires you to find some information, and sometimes take a photo then contact the cache owner. Only once your submission has been approved can you log the cache as found. For this one, the information was supposed to be on a set of three information boards but some of the required information didn't appear to be there. Our GPS was jumping around a bit too, so we just took a photo from the general location of where we thought the photo should have been taken. Thankfully our submission was approved by the cache owners so we've now marked the Earthcache, also named Neptunes Staircase, as "found".

After a couple of hours out in the cold we were ready for a wee treat so jumping back into the car we drove down to Fort William and had a round of Hot Chocolate and cakes in the Nevis Sport cafe!

Three caches found today and a couple of TBs too! Despite the cold we had a successful and enjoyable day out.