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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 ScotlandStirling Wet in Stirlingshire, and the sun sets at 18:00.Watch Scotland live
  1. The clocksWatch Scotland liveThe clocks go back on Sunday.
  2. Mountain weatherBen NevisIt is 7° in Fort William, but on the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, it feels like minus 5°.
  3. WildlifeOrkneyA common seal was seen near Thurso on Thursday.
  4. NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
  5. WildlifeOrkneyGannets were seen near Kirkwall on Thursday.
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
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Just addedAdded today

We've just added the Hippodrome in Bo'ness to the website.

Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema, opened in Bo'ness in 1912, restored in 2009 and home every March to HippFest, the silent film festival.

Find out more about the Hippodrome in Bo'ness
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 11Issue 11Autumn / Winter 2025–26

Mary Arnold-Forster, an architect in Dunkeld, Perthshire, redraws the first single-line sketch of a building hundreds of times, and the finished design often looks just like it.

Mary set up her practice in Dunkeld in 2016 after 16 years working in remote parts of the Highlands and Islands, and she has since won several awards from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Every design begins as an early single-line sketch, which is developed, redrawn and refined over and over. She calls the process circular, because you have to go through the distilling to return to the original idea. 'Every building needs a strong idea'. It need not be a loud one, she says, but it must be clear, and once it is there it can be followed from the first sketch to the tiniest detail.

Read the full story in Issue 11
TodayFor today's weatherLothianDirleton Castle & GardensAttractionLothianTantallon CastleAttractionScottish BordersFloors CastleAttractionSutherlandDunrobin CastleAttractionDumfries and GallowayCaerlaverock CastleAttractionIsle of ArranBrodick Castle, Garden and Country ParkAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

8° and cloudy across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
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
Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

Get Issue 13
WildlifeThis weekSeen 8 times · Ruchazie, GlasgowWhooper swanSeen 7 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 6 times · Hamilton GardensDipperSeen 3 timesBarnacle gooseSeen 3 timesCommon sealSeen 3 timesGrey sealSeen 3 timesBeaverSeen 3 timesRed squirrelSeen twice · North BerwickGannetSeen twiceOtterSeen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilRed deerSeen oncePtarmiganSeen onceGolden eagleSeen onceMinke whaleSeen once · Highland CouncilPine martenSeen 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: 8 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 Lews Castle to the website.

A Victorian castle above Stornoway harbour, with Museum nan Eilean, a café and wooded grounds owned by the community.

Find out more about Lews Castle
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
ClocksSunday

The clocks go back on Sunday.

On Sunday the sun sets at 4.28pm in Lerwick, 4.49pm in Inverness and 4.49pm in Edinburgh, an hour earlier by the clock than the day before. The mornings get the hour: sunrise in Edinburgh is at 7.03am. The change is at two in the morning.

Watch Scotland live
Did you knowGraeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockRead Graeme’s piece

Folklore says Donald Mackay, the Wizard of Reay, studied the dark arts under the Devil himself before hiding out in Smoo Cave, near Durness in Sutherland.

‘The Devil didn’t usually do things for free and as payment he would take the soul of whoever was last to escape his classroom. At the end of their lessons, all of the students prepared to leave but Mackay saw that he was stuck at the back of the queue. He was wise to his teacher’s plan so quickly shouted “de’il tak the hindmost” and bolted outside leaving the Devil with only Mackay’s shadow in his grasp.’

Graeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockRead Graeme’s pieceSee Smoo Cave · Sutherland
Shooting starsTonight

The Orionids are at their best tonight.

They are dust left by Halley's Comet, and they come out of the sky near Orion. The moon is bright this year, so only the best of them will show. Find somewhere dark, lie back and look up; you need no telescope.

Watch Scotland live