The high road

An old Scots song debates whether you should take the high road or low road along the banks of Loch Lomond. But what you should really do is drive westwards away from the famous lake towards Scotland’s deeply indented coast and string of islands, mostly over the horizon from mainstream tourist trails.

Across the hills from Loch Lomond, the sea glints on a long inlet called Loch Fyne, overlooked by Inverary, a royal burgh with fine sea views. Just outside town, Inverary Castle, built of odd grey-green stone, is the seat of the duke of Argyll, chief of the Campbell clan. A thousand muskets, swords and pieces of armour decorate the hall, but most fascinating are the black-and-white photos and memorabilia of family life in the Victorian and Edwardian eras of grand aristocracy.

Further north, Oban is the Argyll region’s biggest town and chief port for the Western Isles, which are separated into two groups by the long peninsula of Kintyre. Mull is the largest island whose lovely little port, Tobermory, has harbour-side houses painted in bright, clashing colours. Nearby Iona is associated with ancient Christianity and has a ruined abbey.

Islay is known for the peat bogs that impart fine flavour to its famous whiskeys such as Laphroaig. Little laneways ramble from one coastal village to another through glens filled with tumbling streams. The island of Jura is even more remote. When the wild southerly wind is up to strength, its waterfalls are blown back uphill, spreading rainbows into the air. In winter, night skies are sometimes illuminated by the aurora borealis, dancing across the heavens in an eerie show of green and yellow light.

As you drive north from Oban, shaggy Highland cattle stand knee-deep in water contemplating their reflections, while black-faced sheep sulk on windblown hillsides. Roads plunge over hills and down to tiny ports in sheltered bays. Dark streams tumble, waterfalls hiss and purple clouds paint frescoes across the sky. 

Castle Stalker, standing on a tiny island surrounded by water, provides a particularly striking scene, but castles in various states of ruin stand at every turn, testament to Argyll’s turbulent history. You’ll find wonderful gardens at Ardanaiseig and Arduine castles, whose unusual plants are warmed by the effects of the Gulf Stream.

Argyll keeps getting better. Tramp the moors, trout fish, or take a boat tour to admire whales and porpoises on wind-tossed seas. 

Scramble over the walls of sheep paddocks and you can admire landscapes of patchwork green fields and yellow gorse tumbling towards cliffs. Ancient hill forts brood under cloudy skies. The mountains are purple, the sea blue against gull-haunted cliffs.

Leave Argyll behind and you abandon neither history nor scenery. This section of indented coast is haunted by the sad tale of Scottish history. To find out more, you can visit the site of the 1692 Massacre of Glencoe and Loch Shiel’s Glenfinnan Monument to the doomed 1745 Jacobite Rising.

Eventually you’ll get to the Isle of Skye. The historical and atmospheric way to arrive is by ferry from Mallaig as seagulls shriek and plunge overhead, but a modern road bridge also now connects the island to the mainland further north. 

A bonus of taking the bridge route is the sight of Eilean Donan Castle, romantically rising from a rock in a loch.

Skye is a bastion of Highland culture. Nearly half the population speaks Gaelic, and the island has a haunted history of rebellion, emigration and strong traditional values. A multi-media show in Clan Donald Visitor Centre in the ruins of Armadale Castle relates Skye’s Celtic culture and natural history, while the Skye Museum of Island Life in Kilmuir has reconstructed the interiors of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century farms.

Old crofts are dotted across the island, with thick white walls and thatched roofs pulled low against the Atlantic winds. The landscape of rolling hills and spectacular crags is also typically Highlands but, thanks again to the Gulf Stream, southern Skye has palms and other exotic trees that have earned the Sleat Peninsula the nickname Garden of Skye. Its gentle roads are lined with hedgerows where pink fuchsia bloom.

As you drive further into the island, Skye provides stunning scenery. One of its most scenic roads leads from Broadford to Elgol, passing lakes and mountains before plunging down to a tiny port in a sheltered sea cove, from which you can walk along the sea cliffs.

Further north, the vivid aquamarine Fairy Pools gush small waterfalls that entice swimmers – though given the frigid temperatures, only brave or foolhardy ones.

Some of Skye’s best walking is in the magnificent Cuillin Hills. These are dark and brooding remnants of worn-down mountains whose sheer cliffs attract climbers from all over Britain, but whose valleys and hillsides provide easy hikes. 

The scenery is dramatic and tortured, the valleys ripped apart by ancient glaciers and filled with lakes that seem to reflect Skye’s dark, romantic history.

And so to the jagged Quiraing, whose towering pinnacles seem as alien as their strange name. These rocky outcrops are the remnants of ancient volcanoes, eroded and exposed. The road towards them winds over bare heath and suddenly the Quiraing looms above you. Far below the sea glints and waterfalls plunge off cliffs into the ocean. The windswept scenery is magnificent and your soul will simply rejoice.