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Issue 13, the walk to the cabin

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The roads less travelled that take you to places that matter. The adventures that gather you up and sweep you away. The blend of the wild and the artistic that makes Scotland what it is. We'd love for you to join us.

Live from ScotlandLoch Clair, Torridon Cloudy in Wester Ross, and the sun sets at 17:55.Watch Scotland live
  1. The Barra planeBarra AirportThe plane from Glasgow is due to land on the beach at Barra at 9.45am.
  2. FoghornMull of Galloway LighthouseThe old foghorn at the Mull of Galloway is due to sound tomorrow.
  3. NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
  4. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.
  5. On todaySutherlandDornoch Whisky Festival Grand Tasting is happening now.
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Did you know

On the island of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides, scheduled passenger planes land on a beach, and the flight times move with the tide.

Barra Airport's three runways are marked out on the sand of Tràigh Mhòr, the beach known in English as the Cockle Strand, with wooden poles at each end. At high tide all three are under the sea, so the times of the flights to Glasgow change with the tide. Because the runways point three different ways, the little Twin Otter planes can almost always land into the wind. The first official service touched down on the sands in August 1936, and Barra is still the only scheduled beach runway in the world.

See Barra Airport · Outer Hebrides
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Just addedAdded yesterday

We've just added the Haining to the website.

A Palladian mansion of 1794 above its own loch, in 160 acres of parkland and woods.

Find out more about the Haining
Did you know

Skara Brae, a stone village on the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, was a thriving community before Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids were built.

People lived in the village from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC. That is earlier than the Great Pyramid, built around 2560 BC, and earlier than the main building at Stonehenge, begun around 3000 BC. Once its people had gone, the village was lost from sight until a storm uncovered it in 1850. The houses still have their stone dressers and box-beds, and Historic Environment Scotland calls it the best-preserved Neolithic, or New Stone Age, settlement in Western Europe. Today you can walk among ten of its buildings and four of its passageways, five thousand years after they were built.

See Skara Brae · Orkney
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TodayFor today's weatherPerthshireHotBoat Sauna, Taymouth MarinaActivityEdinburghEscape SaunaActivityAberdeenshireStravaig SaunasActivityAberdeenshireVinyasa YogaActivityThe Black IsleUnwind in the Wood-Fired SaunaActivityArgyll and ButePortavadie Gym & SpaActivity

Today calls for a sauna.

2° and cloudy across Scotland. Cold enough to want the heat of a sauna, and the swim after.

See them all
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 10Issue 10Spring / Summer 2025

Friends of the lighthouse keeper John Boath and his wife Hazel phoned ahead whenever the couple moved on, so the next cottage down the road could come out and wave too.

John became a keeper on 7 March 1966, and he and Hazel fitted in well wherever they lived, on shore stations like Stoer Head in Assynt. When they left the lighthouse at Maughold, one keeper and former military man, Richard, who called himself 'Squadron Leader Scammells', was not there to see them off, which puzzled John. Then, as they drove away, they spotted him over a small hill with his dog. He told the dog to sit, stood to attention and saluted John and Hazel as they went. Conor Gault, the photographer who gathered the story, could tell how moved John still was by it.

Read the full story in Issue 10
In Issue 13The magazine

Tall Tale

Wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan grew up on Mull and has spent 35 years filming in the world's wildest places. But it took two mountainless years in the Amazon before he really saw Buachaille Etive Mòr.

Read it in Issue 13
WildlifeThis weekSeen 6 times · Hamilton GardensDipperSeen 5 times · Dumfries and GallowayWhooper swanSeen 3 times · DriftwoodGolden eagleSeen 3 times · John Muir WayPink-footed gooseSeen 3 timesBeaverSeen 3 times · KillinRed deerSeen twice · FortroseGannetSeen twice · AngusPine martenSeen twiceOtterSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Dunain CottageRed kiteSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · Dumfries and GallowayBarnacle gooseSeen onceMinke whaleSeen onceGrey sealSeen onceRed squirrelSeen onceMountain hareSeen once · HighlandBadgerSeen onceRed grouse

The wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.

The dipper is a small brown river bird with a white bib that walks underwater along the beds of fast rivers, hunting for insects, and this week the dipper was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 6 sightings, the latest near Hamilton Gardens, Glasgow. These are the animals people have reported most in the last seven days, the most seen first. Every sighting is logged with a photograph or a recording on iNaturalist, the wildlife recording site, and each card opens them on its map.

Where to see wildlife in Scotland
Did you know

Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, and on the old Scottish royal arms two crowned unicorns hold up the shield, bound in golden chains.

The oldest surviving version of the arms with unicorns is a weather-worn carving above the gateway of Rothesay Castle, on the Isle of Bute, made no later than the reign of Robert III, which ended in 1406. In about 1484 James III went further and issued gold coins called the unicorn and the half-unicorn. The chain is usually read as a sign of royal strength: the unicorn was thought too wild for anyone to tame, and only a Scottish king was strong enough to hold it. You can still spot unicorns across the country, from the top of the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh to the gate of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Just addedAdded yesterday

We've just added Cameron's Bakery to the website.

A Selkirk baker's that makes the town's own Selkirk Bannock, a round loaf rich with butter and sultanas.

Find out more about Cameron's Bakery
Did you know

Loch Ness, in the Highlands near Inverness, holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.

Loch Ness isn't the biggest loch in Scotland by area: that is Loch Lomond, at 71 square kilometres. What Loch Ness has is depth. It runs for about 37 kilometres and reaches around 230 metres at its deepest, so it holds 7,452 million cubic metres of water, more than any other loch in Scotland. The water is murky too, because of the peat in the soil around it. And for all that depth, it is not the deepest loch in the country: that is Loch Morar, further west, at 310 metres.

See Loch Ness · Inverness-shire
9.45amToday

The plane from Glasgow is due to land on the beach at Barra at 9.45am.

Barra's runway is the sand of Traigh Mhor, which the sea covers twice a day, so the timetable is set by the tide and changes every few days. It is the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land on a beach. The time is the airline's timetable for today; the airport's own board has the last word.

See Barra Airport
Did you knowGraeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockRead Graeme’s piece

Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, says few people make the short crossing from Oban to the island of Kerrera, in Argyll.

‘Just a five minute drive from Oban, then a five minute ferry, took me to Kerrera. This tiny island is in full view of the busy west coast town, but few people make the effort to visit. It’s a world away from the town, and with no visitor cars allowed, it’s a great place to walk.’

Graeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockRead Graeme’s pieceSee Isle of Kerrera · Argyll and Bute
FoghornTomorrow

The old foghorn at the Mull of Galloway is due to sound tomorrow.

On a few Sundays a year the lighthouse at Scotland's most southerly point starts its old engines and blows the horn, and tomorrow is one of them. The exhibition is open from eleven until five. The lighthouse does not print the hour of the blast, the engines are old enough to refuse, and the horn is never blown in fog, so go hoping to hear it and not counting on it.

See Mull of Galloway Lighthouse