Hidden Scotland
Sign in
Issue 13, the walk to the cabin

Join us on a journey
through Scotland.

It’s 09:02 in Scotland.
Join now

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 ScotlandThe Ariundle oakwood, Strontian Damp in Lochaber, and the sun sets at 18:02.Watch Scotland live
  1. The Caledonian SleeperCaledonian SleeperThe Caledonian Sleeper from London is due across Rannoch Moor about now.
  2. The rutWatch Scotland liveIt is first light in the Highlands, and the stags are roaring.
  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. WildlifeCaithnessA grey seal was seen in Wick on Thursday.
  5. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.
Hidden Scotland

The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.

Twice a year, in printMagazine What to see, do and eatPlaces Cottages, bothies and hotelsAccommodation Ready-made daysDays out Region by regionDestinations From £30 a yearJoin
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
61 views
Just addedAdded today

We've just added Ross Bakery to the website.

A family bakery on Chapel Street in Aberdeen since 1954, known for its pies and savouries, which opens again late on Friday and Saturday nights.

Find out more about Ross Bakery
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
TodayFor today's weatherAberdeenshireRoyal Lochnagar DistilleryAttractionDumfries and GallowayAnnandale DistilleryAttractionMorayshireGlenfiddich DistilleryAttractionArgyll and ButeSpringbank DistilleryAttractionIsle of IslayLaphroaig DistilleryAttractionIsle of IslayLagavulin DistilleryAttraction

Today calls for a dram.

5° and mostly cloudy across Scotland. Cold enough for the tour that ends by the stills.

See them all
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 02Issue 02Spring / Summer 2021

Garry Jamieson, of the family firm Jamieson's of Shetland, went to university to study mechanical engineering before he came home to the spinning mill his father built at Sandness.

Growing up, Garry always worked in the mill with his father, fixing the machinery, and he had a desire to 'use my hands'. University did not suit him. As he puts it, 'After a couple of years I realised that this academic style of engineering was not for me'. He kept working in the factory between terms, earning beer money, and grew more and more interested in running the mill, until joining the business seemed only natural. When his father first built the mill, it mostly made coned yarn for knitting machines. As demand for hand-knitting yarn has grown over 30 years, the mill has had to diversify to keep up.

Read the full story in Issue 02
In Issue 13The magazine

Into the Gloaming

Inspired by her new book, Gloaming: Folklore, Recipes and Crafts to Spark Glimmers of Joy in the Darker Months, Rosie Steer explores how our ancestors learned to find the light and embrace the darkness in autumn and winter.

Read it in Issue 13
WildlifeThis weekSeen 7 times · Ruchazie, GlasgowWhooper swanSeen 6 times · Hamilton GardensDipperSeen 5 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 3 times · DriftwoodGolden eagleSeen 3 timesGrey sealSeen 3 timesBeaverSeen twice · North BerwickGannetSeen twiceBarnacle gooseSeen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilRed deerSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Dunain CottageRed kiteSeen onceMinke whaleSeen onceCommon sealSeen once · Highland CouncilPine martenSeen onceOtterSeen onceRed squirrelSeen onceMountain hareSeen once · HighlandBadgerSeen onceRed grouse

The wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.

Whooper swans are big wild swans with lemon-yellow bills that come to Scotland's lochs and fields each autumn for the winter, and this week they were the animal reported most often in Scotland: 7 sightings, the latest near Ruchazie, 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 today

We've just added the Bread Maker to the website.

A bakery and coffee house on Rosemount Viaduct in Aberdeen, a social enterprise where adults with learning disabilities train as apprentices, open since 2006.

Find out more about the Bread Maker
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
8.44amJust now

The Caledonian Sleeper from London is due across Rannoch Moor about now.

It is timetabled at Rannoch at 8.44am and at Corrour, the highest station on the line, at 8.58am. No road crosses the moor between them, and no public road reaches Corrour at all. Fort William is due at 10am.

See Caledonian Sleeper
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 05Issue 05Autumn / Winter 2022-23

William Munro Ferguson makes the UK's most northerly cider in the old stone stables at Novar, a Highland estate on Scotland's northeast coast.

He spent a season in Normandy learning cidermaking from a master, Eric Bordelet. Back home, Highland apples were mainly cookers and eaters, but he needed tannic apples for real depth of flavour, so he headed to Herefordshire and came back with 21 of the hardiest varieties. His seven-acre orchard of 3,000 trees now mixes them with heritage Highland apples on a south-facing slope. Lately he has been experimenting with wild yeast, letting it establish on the crushed apples for 48 hours before pressing. 'The wild yeasts up here work down to around two degrees,' he says.

Read the full story in Issue 05
8.07amThis morning

It is first light in the Highlands, and the stags are roaring.

For a few weeks each autumn the red deer stags come down off the high ground and bellow at one another across the glens, loudest at dawn and at dusk. Glen Etive, Torridon and Jura are known for it, and it carries a long way, so it is best heard from the road and from a good distance. There are about 3 days of it left.

Watch Scotland live