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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 Ossian Damp in Lochaber, and the sun sets at 16:48.Watch Scotland live
  1. The Barra planeBarra AirportThe plane for Glasgow is due off the beach at Barra about now.
  2. Due this weekWWT CaerlaverockWhooper swans, big wild swans with lemon-yellow bills, are flying in to Caerlaverock and the Loch of Strathbeg for the winter about now.
  3. WildlifeShetlandAn otter was seen near Lerwick on Friday.
  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. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.

The Daily

Arrives at 5am every day.

A free morning email to see what’s on this week, catch up on what’s happening in Scotland and find somewhere new to go.

The Daily for 28 October, from Scotland with love. The same waterfall seen closer, its churning white water framed by orange and red autumn foliage.
Hidden Scotland

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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
103 views
In Aberdeenshire

Deeside Antiques Emporium in Kincardine O'Neil, on Royal Deeside, fills a former church with antiques, old books and props from television dramas.

The Press and Journal went inside and found stags' heads, a glass decanter that glows green under ultraviolet light and a giant bull's head from The Winter King standing in the yard. It opens five days a week and is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Read about it
NewNew yesterday

Delaneys'

A small-plates restaurant on Aviemore's Grampian Road, opened in 2024, cooking with Speyside meat and local fish, with dinner every day except Thursday.

Find out more about Delaneys'
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
66 views
In Angus

Bonfest in Kirriemuir and Summer's End in Brechin are both finalists in this year's UK Festival Awards.

Bonfest, the AC/DC weekend in Kirriemuir run by a local music charity, is up for a community award. Summer's End, which began at Brechin Castle in August, is shortlisted for Susan Boyle's set with the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, and the winners are named on 1 December.

Read about it
Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

Get Issue 13
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

Nick Gardner, who climbed all of Scotland's Munros in his 80s, asked to see a mountain as a small boy and was taken to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.

Even then he loved pictures of mountains, and whenever he asked if people could climb them, the answer was always 'Mountaineers can'. Bradgate Park was a disappointment he still remembers: 'I was expecting the Matterhorn'. The real beginning came at 17, on an Outward Bound Mountain Course, and a year later he joined the University Mountaineering Club and fell in love with mountains. Decades later he set out to climb all the Munros, the Scottish mountains over 3,000 feet, and expected it to take three years; from 2020 to 2022, two was enough. As he says, 'In the mountains, I am at peace with the world'.

Read the full story in Issue 06
TodayFor today's weatherDumfries and GallowayThreave CastleAttractionDumfries and GallowayDrumlanrig CastleAttractionMorayshireBrodie CastleAttractionEdinburghBlackness CastleAttractionIsle of MullDuart CastleAttractionAyrshireCulzean CastleAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

11° and mostly cloudy across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
In Dumfries and Galloway

National Geographic has named Dumfries and Galloway in its Best of the World list for 2027, the only place in the UK among its 25.

The magazine points to the new Rhins of Galloway Coast Path from Portpatrick to the Mull of Galloway, the Gallovidian Gravel Route for cyclists, and Caerlaverock Castle, which marks 750 years in 2027.

Read about it
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.

WildlifeThis weekSeen 11 times · Hogganfield LochWhooper swanSeen 11 times · BallachulishRed deerSeen 8 timesCommon sealSeen 7 timesGolden eagleSeen 5 times · InverurieDipperSeen 5 timesRed squirrelSeen 4 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 4 times · FifeOtterSeen twiceGannetSeen twice · Shore StreetGrey sealSeen once · Dunain CottageRed kiteSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · Dumfries and GallowayBarnacle gooseSeen once · Glenmore ForestBeaver

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: 11 sightings, the latest near Hogganfield Loch, 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
In Shetland Islands

Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have taken Gone Fishing to Shetland, fishing for trout on Tingwall Loch and pollock off the rocks near Minn Beach in Burra.

The pair made Scalloway their base, in a cottage looking over the harbour. The episode, Shetland trout and pollock, is on BBC iPlayer.

Read about it
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