Lassintullich House

Lassintullich House sits at the foot of Schiehallion, two miles out from Kinloch Rannoch in a quiet corner of Highland Perthshire. Built in the 18th century and extended by the Victorians, it sleeps 16 across eight bedrooms, three of them master suites. The glen runs between Loch Rannoch and Loch Tummel, and the house sits well back from the village, so it's about as private as a place this size gets.

The old country-house character has survived, woodburners and log fires, a dining room that seats 22, alongside a new high-spec kitchen. There's a boot room and laundry set up to dry wet kit and wetter dogs, plus storage for bikes, kayaks and the rest of the adventure gear.

It's built for a crowd. Family gatherings, big celebrations, residential courses, the kind of trip where you want everyone under one roof. The drawing room and sitting room both have full TV and WiFi, and there's a conservatory and outdoor dining for when the weather plays along.

Walking and cycling go straight from the door. Most people don't bother much with the car once they're here.

Lassintullich runs to 100 acres of grounds and woodland, and the Duncans, who've farmed here since 2014, lay on a good bit for guests. There's a rowing boat down by the shore for a potter on the loch, wild swimming, and family cycles out to the tearoom at Rannoch Station, about as remote a coffee stop as you'll find. E-bikes can be hired locally if a full lap of the loch sounds like work.

Then the hills. Schiehallion is the obvious one, and they run a "Schiehallion before breakfast club" for anyone keen enough to be up the mountain early. It's a good first Munro, and there are other peaks close by if you're collecting them. Even on a flat day, an amble down to the loch edge with the dog counts.

For something faster, the eighty-five-mile closed-road cycle etape takes in the Schiehallion hill climb once a year. And if you're after high-adrenaline watersports, the facilities are over at Loch Tay rather than on the Rannoch lochs, which run at a slower pace.

Anglers do well here. Loch Rannoch is an odd one, holding three separate forms of Arctic charr and the big ferox trout, a cannibal brown that can top 20lb if you find one. Brown trout and charr through the summer, pike all year. No salmon, mind, the dams downstream put paid to that years back.

There's a herd of pedigree Luing cattle on the land, a Highland-Shorthorn cross the Duncans started with four prize cows in 2014. They live out year-round, so give them a wide berth with dogs. The wildlife beyond that is a big part of why people come back. Red squirrels everywhere, raiding the feeders, with no greys to push them out. Pine martens about, if you're lucky. Red and roe deer on the lower ground morning and evening, stags coming down off the hill as autumn turns. Ospreys fish the loch through the summer; a pair has bred at Carie, just along the south shore. Overhead, a kestrel hovering, a buzzard, a hen harrier, the odd golden eagle. Curlew and black grouse on the open ground, and on a still evening the strange drumming of a snipe. Down in the old pines of the Black Wood, if you're patient, the capercaillie and the Scottish crossbill.