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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 ScotlandThe Clyde, Glasgow Clear in Glasgow, and the sun sets at 18:09.Watch Scotland live
  1. The Caledonian SleeperCaledonian SleeperThe Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train to London, was due to leave Edinburgh and Glasgow at 11.15pm.
  2. Loch levelsLoch MareeLoch Maree, in Wester Ross, is 29 centimetres higher than it usually is in October.
  3. WildlifeCaithnessA common seal was seen in Caithness 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. 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
Just addedAdded today

We've just added the Forge Experience at Gretna Green to the website.

Half an hour with Gretna Green's resident blacksmith, pressing your own commemorative coin from hot metal to take home.

Find out more about the Forge Experience at Gretna Green
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 weatherLoch LomondSauna and Swim ExperienceActivityGlencoeWilderness SaunaActivityPerthshireBirch Tree YogaActivityStirlingshireSpa salts and tea blends workshopActivityArgyll and ButeThe SaunaActivityMorayshireWood-fired saunaActivity

Today calls for a sauna.

2° and clear 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 13Issue 13Autumn / Winter 2026-27

Sam Heughan, the Outlander actor, runs Ride Galloway, a motorbike weekend that takes around 200 riders on nearly 130 miles of Dumfries and Galloway roads.

Sam grew up in rural Galloway and loves coming home on his motorbike, which he says is a great way to explore an area. Ride Galloway is the weekend his Galloway Distillery runs with him, on two loops out of Newton Stewart. The riders go through the Galloway Forest, past Clatteringshaws and round the Machars peninsula, then back east on the A75, with food, music and competitions at base. His own favourite way down is from Dalmellington through the pass, on 'some amazing roads', before he finally reaches the coast. It is Raiders Road and the Wild Goat Park, he says, that tell him he is getting close to home. The ride returns in 2027.

See Galloway Distillery · Dumfries and Galloway
WildlifeThis weekSeen 15 timesRed deerSeen 11 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 10 times · Ruchazie, GlasgowWhooper swanSeen 7 times · North BerwickGannetSeen 6 timesCommon sealSeen 6 timesGrey sealSeen 5 times · GlasgowDipperSeen 4 timesWhite-tailed eagleSeen 4 timesPine martenSeen 4 timesOtterSeen 4 timesRed squirrelSeen 3 timesBarnacle gooseSeen 3 times · Mid ArgyllBeaverSeen twiceGolden eagleSeen twiceRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Endrick WaterAtlantic salmonSeen onceBadger

The wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.

Red deer are Britain's largest land mammal, and in autumn the stags roar through the rut, and this week they were the animal reported most often in Scotland: 15 sightings, the latest in Argyll and Bute Council. 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 Smithy Experience at the Gretna Green Forge to the website.

An hour at your own anvil in Gretna Green's forge, learning the basics of blacksmithing and making a fireside poker to take home.

Find out more about the Smithy Experience at the Gretna Green Forge
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
11.15pmJust now

The Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train to London, was due to leave Edinburgh and Glasgow at 11.15pm.

This is the Lowlander. Its Edinburgh and Glasgow halves are joined at Carstairs and cross the border at Carlisle in the small hours, due into London Euston at 7.15am: asleep in Scotland, awake in the middle of London.

See Caledonian Sleeper
Did you knowRachel EunsonWritten byRachel EunsonRead Rachel’s piece

The Old Man of Hoy, the sea stack off the island of Hoy in Orkney, has drawn some remarkable climbers over the years.

‘Other notable climbers in the following years include an ascent by seven-year-old Roy Clarkson who became the youngest to conquer the Stack, an ascent by a blind climber, Red Szell in 2013 and a daring BASE jump from the summit in 2008. The French climber Catherine Destivelle became the first woman to solo climb the stack in 1998 and gained the name ‘the Rock Queen’ for her efforts. Incredibly, Catherine was 4 months pregnant at the time of her climb and so carried with her possibly the youngest ever to reach the summit.’

Rachel EunsonWritten byRachel EunsonRead Rachel’s pieceSee The Old Man of Hoy · Orkney
LochsToday

Loch Maree, in Wester Ross, is 29 centimetres higher than it usually is in October.

That is about a foot, against the loch's own average for the month over many years. It is on its way down. A gauge on the loch, kept by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, reads the level every quarter of an hour.

See Loch Maree