At Fort Augustus, the village at the southwest end of Loch Ness, the Caledonian Canal climbs a ladder of five locks towards Loch Oich, the highest point on the whole coast-to-coast waterway. Thomas Telford's canal was finished in 1822 and was already out of date for commercial shipping by then. Today it carries yachts and cruisers, and watching a boat work its way up the flight, gate by gate, is the village's main entertainment.
There are cafés and pubs along both sides of the locks, and cruise boats leave from beside the swing bridge. At the loch end, the little Pepper Pot lighthouse of 1840 marks the canal entrance. The village takes its name from the government fort built here after the 1715 rising, which later became a Benedictine abbey and is now apartments.