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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 ScotlandCastle Stalker Bright in Argyll and Bute, and the sun sets at 16:37.Watch Scotland live
  1. GeeseLoch GruinartThe sun is about to set at Loch Gruinart, and the barnacle geese are coming in to roost.
  2. Due this weekWatch Scotland liveRedwings and fieldfares, the thrushes that come to Scotland for the winter, are arriving about now.
  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 todaySutherlandTomorrow, Autumn Highland Festival is on in Dornoch.

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 3 November, from Scotland with love. Black cattle graze a fort mound above a river valley, a farmhouse and white cottages scattered among green fields and autumn woodland.
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
127 views
In Glasgow

Outlander will be honoured for its outstanding contribution to television at the Scottish Baftas in Glasgow on 15 November.

The award goes to four people behind the series, among them its star Sam Heughan, after eight seasons that sent visitors off to castles and villages all over Scotland.

Read about it
NewNew today

The Scottish Craft School

A craft school on Dunblane High Street teaching heritage crafts by hand, from willow baskets to bookbinding, in one-day workshops and week-long courses.

Find out more about the Scottish Craft School
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 10Issue 10Spring / Summer 2025

Bill Gault became the last of Scotland's lighthouse keepers in 1998, when he turned off the light at Fair Isle South Lighthouse in Shetland.

Bill joined the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1966, aged 25, and went on to work at more than 16 lighthouses, from Skerryvore to Copinsay, with three years at Ardnamurchan on the westernmost point of the British mainland. Keepers worked a four-hour watch with eight hours off, kept the light turning, took weather readings and could be stuck for weeks when bad weather stopped the relief. Automation ended 200 years of round-the-clock duty, and Bill went on to work as a tour guide at the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses in Fraserburgh. Today his grandson, the photographer Conor Gault, is photographing the last keepers and their families to remember the way of life they knew.

Read the full story in Issue 10
Open again

Milnes Bar on Hanover Street in Edinburgh has reopened after a six-figure refurbishment.

Poets and art students drank here through the 20th century. The Lonely Poet's Chair has kept its place among the new booths, lighting and outdoor seating.

Read about it
Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

Get Issue 13
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
86 views
TodayFor today's weatherAngusGlamis CastleAttractionAberdeenshireCrathes CastleAttractionEdinburghEdinburgh CastleAttractionIsle of SkyeDunvegan CastleAttractionAberdeenshireDrum CastleAttractionAberdeenshireHuntly CastleAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

9° and mostly cloudy across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
Opens 10 December

Komo, a studio for Pilates, yoga, breathwork and sound, opens on Gray Street in Broughty Ferry on 10 December.

Shelley Booth is starting it with her 16-year-old son, who came up with the name from komorebi, the Japanese word for sunlight through leaves. It is upstairs from Visocchi's.

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.

51 views
WildlifeThis weekSeen 6 times · EdinburghWhooper swanSeen 6 times · ElginRed squirrelSeen 5 timesPink-footed gooseSeen 3 times · River TyneDipperSeen 3 times · Kintail CottageRed deerSeen twice · InvernessPtarmiganSeen twiceGrey sealSeen twiceAdderSeen onceGannetSeen once · Perth and KinrossRed kiteSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen onceCommon sealSeen onceOtterSeen once · Glenmore ForestBeaverSeen once · Cairn Gorm, HighlandMountain hare

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: 6 sightings, the latest in Edinburgh. 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 Aberdeen

Aberdeen Arts Centre won two prizes at the Celebrate Aberdeen Awards, for its campaign to save the venue.

The King Street theatre took Community Impact and Event or Campaign of the Year at the ceremony on Saturday.

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