Loch Trossachs Katrine
Loch Katrine in the Trossachs National Park northwest of Stirling is the most celebrated loch in the Scottish Highlands south of the Highland Boundary Fault, a Highland loch of exceptional scenery famous as the setting of Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake and as the water supply reservoir for Glasgow in a combination of literary heritage and Victorian engineering that has made it one of the most visited natural attractions in the Trossachs. The SS Sir Walter Scott, a restored Victorian steamship that has operated on the loch since 1900, provides one of the finest heritage vessel experiences in Scotland.
Loch Katrine provides the water supply for Glasgow through a gravity-fed aqueduct of nearly 50 kilometres constructed between 1856 and 1859 in one of the most important public health engineering achievements of Victorian Scotland, the clean water from the loch replacing the contaminated well water that had contributed to the cholera epidemics that killed thousands of Glasgow residents in the 1830s and 1840s. The quality of the water has been maintained in the loch catchment by preventing agricultural and industrial development since 1856, keeping Loch Katrine exceptionally clean.
The cycling on the traffic-free road along the north shore of the loch provides one of the finest accessible cycling routes in the Trossachs, and the combination of the steamer trip and the cycling creates an excellent full day in the loch and forest landscape of the national park.