A caravan sits on the shingle at Dores Beach, and the man inside it makes model monsters. Steve Feltham gave up his job, his home and his relationship and began a full-time search for the Loch Ness monster on 18 July 1991, after a childhood visit had stayed with him. He is still here, and his caravan and model-making base are now part of the village. "I still love the possibility that it's just going to happen suddenly," he says.
The water he watches is the reason most people come. Dores sits at the north-eastern end of Loch Ness, where a long stony beach opens the classic view southwest down the loch, with the hill of Meall Fuar Mhonaidh standing across the far side and woods wrapping round Torr Point. It is the quieter side of the loch.
The Dores Inn stands beside the beach. The main building is closed for refurbishment, but the food has not stopped: an outdoor pop-up runs in the grounds, with two food trucks, a large stretch tent and wooden tables. Out of them come flatbreads filled with venison salami, pickles and smoked Dunlop cheese; crispy cod with tartare sauce and a crushed-pea salad; a smash burger and fries from the outside counter; organic ice cream, strawberry sorbet and fresh garden juices. Cromarty Brewing's Happy Chappy has turned up at the counter, though what's on the bar can change.
Ness Gifts is the other fixed point, an independent shop stocking Scottish makers — jewellery, knitwear, blankets, soaps, candles, glassware, honey, toys, dog accessories and books, including pieces by ANTA. It also runs a mobile Post Office service. The village's permanent shop and Post Office have both closed, and between the gift shop and the seasonal beach outlets, that's the limited local provision Dores has left.
From the church car park a circular walk of about four and a quarter miles follows the shore through Torr Woods, past Feltham's caravan and a playground, with a chance of red squirrels or roe deer and views across to the Aldourie jetty and castle. The castle grew from a sixteenth-century tower during Victorian times; its grounds are private, so you look and keep walking. A longer route runs about eleven miles to Inverness on the Loch Ness 360 trail, passing MacBain Memorial Park — laid out in 1961 by Hughston McBain, twenty-first chief of the clan, to restore an old family link with the land — before the Moray Firth and the Kessock Bridge come into view.
The parish church was built in 1828, though a church has stood at Dores since 1233. It is built of rubble walls and dressed stone, with Y-traceried windows, a later Gothic bellcote, an octagonal panelled pulpit and a galleried interior. The burial ground keeps stones from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
For younger visitors, Loch Ness Alpacas at Balachladaich takes bookings to meet and feed the animals and walk them down through the woods to the beach; the males are called Zodiac, Aero and Cosmic.
Dores is eight miles from Inverness, about fifteen minutes by car, and sits at the junction of the B862 and B852, the latter carrying on down the south shore to Foyers, where a path and steps lead to viewpoints over the 140-foot Falls of Foyers. Bus 302 links Inverness, the Dores Inn and Foyers. The roads are narrow and parking can be pressured in summer, so come early or come out of season.
For eight summers from 2006 the RockNess festival filled nearby Clune Farm with tens of thousands of people; it stopped in 2013, but its benefit fund lives on through the community trust, handing out small grants and bursaries. North of the village, a scheduled cropmark marks the post-pits of a late prehistoric timber roundhouse, at least fourteen metres across.
The loch gives nothing away. Feltham watches it anyway.