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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 ScotlandClachan Bridge Clear in Argyll and Bute, and the sun sets at 16:41.Watch Scotland live
  1. FoghornMull of Galloway LighthouseThe old foghorn at the Mull of Galloway is due to sound today.
  2. Due this weekWatch Scotland liveGrey seal pups are being born about now, in white coats, on quiet beaches and islands round the coast.
  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. On todayCaithnessTaste North is on in Wick today.
  5. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.

The Daily

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The Daily for 1 November, from Scotland with love. A misty lane runs past slate-roofed cottages toward a wooded hillside.
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
116 views
In Isle of Skye

Michael Smith, the chef behind Loch Bay on Skye, is to lead the food at the Perle Hotels in Skye, Oban and Glencoe.

He starts on 10 November and will spend time in each restaurant, The Bosville in Portree among them, before working with the teams on menus built around local produce. Loch Bay, the Michelin-starred seafood restaurant he ran in Waternish with his wife Laurence, closed after its last service on 31 October.

Read about it
NewNew today

Meall a' Choire Leith

A Munro of 926 metres at the north end of the Ben Lawers hills, above Glen Lyon, climbed from the hill road by Lochan na Lairige.

Find out more about Meall a' Choire Leith
Did you know

Seumas Mackinnon has been sailing visitors from Elgol on Skye to Loch Coruisk since 1969, and three generations of his family now crew the boats.

Seumas was born in Elgol, and his earliest memories of Loch Coruisk are of going there with his father, Lachie, while he built the Loch Coruisk Memorial Hut in 1959. Ten years later Seumas began taking visitors to the loch in a 21-foot launch called Apollo. His eldest son, Sandy, had his first job collecting the fares on Apollo in the 1980s, and now skippers the Misty Isle. Sandy's son, another Seumas, trained at drama school and now skippers the Maid of Coruisk, filling the trip with tales of clan battles and local giants. With Anne, the elder Seumas's wife, selling tickets at the top of the jetty, Misty Isle Boat Trips is still very much a family affair.

A skipper at the wheel on a Misty Isle boat trip, with a young passenger beside him.See Misty Isle Boat Trips · Isle of Skye
In the Outer Hebrides

Part of what visitors pay at the Calanais Stones visitor centre on Lewis is now going to heritage projects right across the Outer Hebrides.

Urras nan Tursachan, the trust behind the centre, has opened the Calanais Fund for Heritage, with grants for community groups caring for old buildings, archaeology, Gaelic traditions and local archives anywhere in the islands. The first round closes in mid-December, and the first awards are due in February.

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
81 views
TodayFor today's weatherGlasgowGlengoyne DistilleryAttractionArgyll and ButeOban DistilleryAttractionEaster RossGlenmorangie DistilleryAttractionOrkneyHighland Park DistilleryTourIsle of SkyeTorabhaig DistilleryAttractionIsle of SkyeIsle of Raasay DistillerySleeps 2

Cold enough for a dram.

5° and sunny across Scotland: the still house is the warmest room in the county.

See all the distilleries
In Edinburgh

Edinburgh Zoo has a new red panda, a one-year-old female called Yun.

Yun was born in June 2025 at Banham Zoo in Norfolk. Bruce, the zoo's male red panda, is her new companion, and the keepers hope the pair will have cubs one day.

See Edinburgh Zoo
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.

50 views
WildlifeThis weekSeen 5 times · Nigg, AberdeenWhooper swanSeen 4 times · Dumfries and GallowayRed squirrelSeen 3 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 3 timesCommon sealSeen 3 timesGrey sealSeen twiceDipperSeen twice · BallachulishRed deerSeen twiceAdderSeen once · Cairn Gorm, MorayPtarmiganSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · FifeOtterSeen 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: 5 sightings, the latest near Nigg, Aberdeen. 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 Glasgow

POP, Glasgow's first gourmet popcorn shop, has opened on Great Western Road in the West End.

The popcorn is made in small batches through the day, with six flavours at a time, from sweet and salted to cheese and truffle. There is soft-serve ice cream too, for popcorn sundaes.

Read about it
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 03Issue 03Winter 2021

Neil Hammond built Dun Brewing at Glenelg, in Lochalsh, in 2018, between two Iron Age stone towers and on land that once held his wind-turbine business.

The brewery takes its name from the brochs, the Iron Age stone towers of Dun Telve and Dun Trodden, and stands on Corrary Farm, 500 hectares of hill and forestry land that Neil and his wife Amy have owned for 25 years. Brewing organic beer, Neil admits, is probably more of a hobby. What the couple are really doing is planting: 35 hectares of native woodland, and a tree nursery to replace commercial spruce on neighbouring land with native Scots pine, birch, ash and beech. 'You'd have to be stupid to start a business here', he told the magazine with a wry smile, sitting outside one of his own.

Read the full story in Issue 03