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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 ScotlandNorth Berwick Law Bright in Lothian, and the sun sets at 16:15.Watch Scotland live
  1. Due this weekCluny House GardensThe red squirrels are busy on the woodland floor, burying nuts for the winter.
  2. StarsLoch TullaA clear, dark night is forecast over Loch Tulla.
  3. Just openedShetlandLerwick Town Hall is open again.
  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. WildlifeOuter HebridesRed deer were seen near Kintail Cottage, Isle of North Uist, on Monday.

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The Daily for 9 November, from Scotland with love. an autumn-wooded loch reflected in still water, rocks breaking the surface in the foreground
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
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In Edinburgh

National Records of Scotland has brought out a new edition of its guide to tracing your Scottish family history.

The eighth edition of Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors walks you step by step through building a family tree from Scotland's archives. It adds the records put online since the last one, from kirk session papers to Land Army index cards. It also explains how to see the ones held only in the search rooms at General Register House in Edinburgh.

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TodayFor today's weatherAberdeenshireCastle FraserAttractionAberdeenshireFyvie CastleAttractionAberdeenshireCraigievar CastleAttractionLochalshEilean Donan CastleAttractionArgyll and ButeInveraray CastleAttractionPerthshireScone PalaceAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

7° and partly sunny across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
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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
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In Isle of Skye

Radio Skye came home from the Community Radio Awards in Birmingham with four prizes.

The Portree station took silver for its digital content and for its news and factual storytelling, and bronze for its YouthSPACE project and a sports show, at the awards' tenth year on 24 October. Radio Wester Ross won gold for one of its presenters.

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 07Issue 07Autumn / Winter 2023-24

Polly Cameron, whose family has had The Dell of Abernethy near Nethy Bridge since the 1960s, says the way into the Cairngorms is to slow right down.

Her grandparents ran The Dell first and her uncle John after them, and Polly spent every holiday there as a child, so taking it on with her own family felt very much like coming home. Her advice to visitors is to find a very quiet spot first: 'Put your feet in the water, breathe deeply in the woods, get in sync with your surroundings'. She suggests covering the ground on foot or by bike rather than by car, and not packing the days too full. A huge area of ancient Caledonian pine forest lies on the doorstep, and her own ideal Sunday ends with a family roast and, if she can squeeze it in, a swim at dusk.

Read the full story in Issue 07
WildlifeThis weekSeen 8 timesRed deerSeen 7 times · Birnam Place, DundeePink-footed gooseSeen 5 times · EdinburghDipperSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 4 timesOtterSeen 3 timesWhooper swanSeen 3 times · Isle Of North UistBarnacle gooseSeen 3 times · East LothianCommon sealSeen 3 times · AppinPine martenSeen twiceWhite-tailed eagleSeen twiceRed squirrelSeen twice · HighlandBadgerSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen onceGrey sealSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hare

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: 8 sightings. 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 Argyll and Bute

The last of the Rosneath Peninsula's Victorian drinking fountains has been restored.

Four were put up in the 1880s and this one, from the Shore Road in Cove and Kilcreggan, is the only survivor. Public donations paid for its repair at a foundry in Lochgelly, and it goes on show in the Creggans bar in Kilcreggan for a few days later this month.

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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.

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Red squirrelsThis week

The red squirrels are busy on the woodland floor, burying nuts for the winter.

Autumn is the easiest time of year to see one, because they come down out of the trees to gather and hide food, and the leaves are thinning. Go quietly, early, in pine or mixed woodland. This is our own film, taken at Cluny House Gardens in Perthshire.

See Cluny House Gardens
In Ayrshire

The Gaiety in Ayr has announced its spring and summer 2027 season, the first under its new creative director, Laila Noble.

It includes a new play by L C Stephens, written for the Gaiety and rooted in Ayrshire history, as the theatre heads into its 125th year in 2027.

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
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