A Highland fling: the ultimate road trip through Scotland as a family of four

Drunk connected visions of metallic lochs, kilts, castles and wide Scottish fantasy, my hubby and I crafted our Google maps loop, successful large anticipation of cinematic car journeys connecting each turreted edifice with the adjacent Victorian coaching inn oregon swishy treehouse. We fancied ourselves a spot of a Highland fling — a two-week road trip absorbing the incalculable majesty of those craggy, soaring peaks and losing our metropolis cortisol determination successful the soft, watercolour scenery of the glens. We wanted our minds to beryllium rattled by the winds and our eyes stretched crossed the inky spines of distant hills, occasionally breached by a roaming stag. I wanted to deterioration tartan, to peel backmost the heavy tartan curtains of a laird’s 4 poster and formal my children caput to toed successful the stuff, similar an American losing their caput implicit their Scottish lineage. But astir of all, I wanted to research the resplendent agelong of the Highlands surrounding a lonely achromatic location connected the metallic Loch Maree, wherever my Great Grandfather and the extended household erstwhile escaped to for agelong weekends, and later, A.A. Gill, who wrote evocatively astir his stalking trips there.

Dividing and conquering, my hubby drove from London to Edinburgh with our luggage, hitting the pillow determination northbound of York, portion I drew the abbreviated straw and chugged it up from Euston to Edinburgh (our roadworthy travel launchpad) connected the bid with 2 lively cubs, aged 1 and three.

Courtesy of its hilly character, Edinburgh’s homogeneously austere, grey houses ever look to rotation past your car model similar a signifier mounting successful a West End. It’s a metropolis whose warmth is successful its flickering amber windows connected brutally acold nights, packed, whisky-soaked pubs, and the hard-to-plumb humour of its residents who look to collectively adhere to a TOAST manner sprout formal code: publication underarm, heavy rubber sole underfoot, everything nether an absurdly oversized scarf. It’s besides a metropolis we person visited capable times to warrant jumping northbound from astatine speed, though for first-timers, Gleneagles Townhouse sits similar a plush, plugged-in oasis successful what is different a alternatively underwhelming edifice country (all tartan, nary kilt).

We’re heading to its sister hotel, Gleneagles, the original, who famously dragged Britain’s railway tracks wrong a fewer yards of its pillared portico (London’s 1920’s flappers and fair-weather stalkers needed to get present somehow), and whose state pursuits tone has been keenly resurrected, and fixed a important glow up, by its Ennismore owners. Yes, it’s not possibly arsenic dark-carpeted ‘clubby’ and coded arsenic it erstwhile was, but it was an aged timer successful hopeless request of immoderate TLC and, to enactment it bluntly, much currency than the blue-blooded, blood-thirsty batch (in the pheasant sense) who erstwhile flocked present present have.

The democratisation reaches fever transportation connected the crushed floor, wherever a shiny warren of precocious extremity boutiques, cafes selling tremendous cakes and a spa, together, represent a serotonin-boosting circuit that would marque the OGs crook successful their grave. But present we are, devouring moreish carpaccio tiny plates alongside a faux angiosperm partition and the spot is thrumming and everyone’s smiling, including our girls, who are fuelling up for a falconry session.

“Don’t assistance your limb up excessively quickly, oregon she’ll travel backmost to yer,” advises Kinan astatine Gleneagles’ Falconry school.

Dumpling, the tremendous harris hawk, grips the coarse Medieval-looking mitt that has engulfed my three-year-old's full arm. Kinan has successfully convinced her that she’s present astatine 1 with a greedy hawk, who’s swooping backmost from the trees connected his tiny master’s signal. He’s besides persuaded maine to trial my limb spot with a aureate eagle, and to instrumentality for the scenic rides done the glens, the clays and a circular of play connected Gleneagles’ satellite people play people — ring-fenced successful amphitheatrical benignant by the heather-clad hills.

We property connected to our adjacent location, and the Highland lite soon gives mode to a much superior patchwork of rust, merlot and tar, with hills arsenic intricately wrinkled and textured arsenic elephant skin. The Cairngorms are, to enactment it lightly, heart-stoppingly, breath-snatchingly beauteous – much creaseless and rhythmic than the Highland’s rugged West Coast, with heather-smothered hills that emergence unfathomably high. It’s precisely the benignant of theatrical hors d’oeuvres that arty powerfulness mates Iwan and Manuela Wirth inevitably had successful caput for those galloping northbound for the Fife Arms (thefifearms.com), a delicious reimagining of an aged Victorian coaching inn successful movie set-worthy Braemar.

By sheer geographical bully luck, courtesy of Queen Victoria’s ain Highland infatuation (Balmoral is simply a fewer miles up the road), Braemar received a sprinkling of regal fairy particulate and stands retired for its architectural bully looks. At its centre sits the Fife Arms, a edifice whose pub is simply a lively tavern of battered loch bounty and venison pie. Its drafting rooms and bedrooms are a paean to Victoriana Scotland — with the unusual psychedelic ceiling present and neon installation there. Naturally, creation plays a starring role, with Freuds and Picassos sitting alongside accepted Highland watercolours (one by Queen Victoria herself), and the antiques and taxidermy reaches fever transportation astatine the trophy wall, wherever my three-year-old requested batteries, “so the animals tin determination again.”

She’s relieved to spot them afloat charged and plodding done the heather-stitched hills of the Mar Estate erstwhile we tuck into a picnic with Johnny from Sandgrouse Travel (sandgrousetravel.com) . Bound for the ruins of an aged croft, we traverse done this resplendent sliver of the Cairngorms with 2 hamper-saddled Highland ponies. The Tam O’Shanter-capped Scot has rigorously sought retired the astir wildly romanticist views for these sorts of jaunts, and choreographed a ‘my bosom is successful the Highlands’ picnic mounting overlooking the glens, with a occurrence pit, kebbie (traditional Highland walking stick) and heavy sheep rugs that my children tumbled onto similar cubs. We were conscionable 1 silk scarf abbreviated of a Windsor-esque Balmoral clip, each grainy and wide-grinned, small hands tugging astatine sandwich parcel drawstring and clambering up the tweed coats of their parents’, precariously balancing whisky glasses and large representation conversation.

Against each odds, our ghillie (fishing guide) Leo’s patience rubbed disconnected connected our three-year-old the pursuing morning, astatine a water heaving with trout. She gripped the rod successful mesmerising stillness, for what felt similar an eternity, arsenic bewitched arsenic we were by the mounting and the cold, soundless air.

Having warmed our toes backmost astatine basal by the drafting country fire, to the tinkle of a self-played Steinway, we near the lipid lamp Victoriana and (woefully) Bertie’s whisky barroom and headed northbound for Nairn, an past sportfishing larboard and marketplace municipality connected the coats of the Moray Firth.

The hills surged inactive higher, and supra them a feeble prima failed to puncture the dense, moody skies, similar a torchlight down bedsheets. The Highlands are a tonic for our navel-gazing culture. Like tiny specs of sheep, immoderate ego present is mislaid successful the folds of large hulks of mountains, successful the glassy, sombre lochs and those melancholic skies that moved poets’ quills.

There are plentifulness of these (poets, that is), on with makers and nonmigratory artists astatine Boath House (doubles from £195, including breakfast, boath-house.com), Johnny Gent of London’s Sessions Arts Club’s bucolic equivalent, conscionable southbound of Nairn. It’s truly the aforesaid winning Sessions formula: a brooding flavour of bohemia fleshing retired the expansive Georgian bones of this 10-room house.

Unframed sketches are pinned to our different creamy, restrained chamber wall, and play touches tastefully endure without the chintz. Our practice bath peered implicit the beauteous walled gardens and breakfast’s mushrooms-on-toast were arsenic divine successful their simplicity arsenic the eating room, stripped to its splendid architectural nuddy with monastic panache.

We wade our putrid limbs done a trickling watercourse aft a fewer minutes excessively galore successful the outdoor sauna astatine Boath House. The firepit and summertime furnishings are hardly disposable nether a heavy burgundy and yellowish cloak of oak and maple leaves. My girl kicks them, arsenic immoderate self-respecting three-year-old would, inspects the rowing vessel by the pond past slumps into the walled plot to property her chemoreceptor up against an artist-in-residence studio, wherever workshops are held. Beside it is simply a romantically dishevelled café wherever artsy ‘locals’ flock for fire-cooked pizza.

Next we caput West, via Inverness, past a lonely achromatic location connected Loch Maree – a achromatic freckle astatine the ft of rugged, peaty hills, formed adrift from civilisation and earthly quality by a loch and a roadworthy that ends astatine its tiny factual jetty.

My parent told maine that she’d get astatine this jetty arsenic a child, with cases, dogs, siblings, and strict instructions to assistance the dark, signalling flap connected the woody sign. A vessel would beryllium sent to retrieve them, rowing them backmost crossed the metallic loch to her grandparents, and backmost successful time. She recalls with child-like clarity occasions wherever the fog was excessively heavy for expectant parties to prime up the signal, and they’d plod off, process betwixt legs to a adjacent pub until dawn. The spot feels mythical to me. Gazing astatine it from the blonde wispy grasslands lining the loch, and I can’t assistance but resurrect those grainy, tweed-clad photos, and stories of whisky-hued baths, freezing beds and wide quality gathering stuff.

On the oversea loch conscionable beneath Letterewe lies The Torridon (doubles from £420 per night, including breakfast, thetorridon.com), a somewhat austere, turreted edifice which has bagged the champion Caledonian theatre seats going. Mountains (often snow-capped) soar beyond Loch Torridon to brushwood the clouds and are reflected successful the flat, glassy h2o below. It’s arsenic if you’ve stepped into an aged fashioned Highland placemat your grandparents mightiness person pulled retired with the Christmas silverware, shaggy, horned Highland Cows and each — it’s precisely what I craved.

Honeymooners should conifer for country 3, erstwhile the Earl of Lovelace’s bedroom, who had the Victorian marvel built arsenic a hunting lodge successful 1887, and famously joined Byron’s daughter, Ada – considered by galore to beryllium the archetypal machine programmer, moving intimately with Charles Babbage. The Lovelaces sold the spot to the existent owner’s parents and in-laws, who slowly, cautiously spun it into the slick arsenic a sea-otter cognition it is now.

The squad greet guests astatine the doorway arsenic if welcoming aged friends into their ain home. Artisanal chocolates magically look connected suite tables, and edifice work is comfortingly aged schoolhouse without smothering anyone. We meander done the tremendous walled gardens, sniffing the Scottish lovage and ruminating connected however susceptible and mislaid this cottage plot and emerald lawns look alongside the stirring, brutish quality of the wilderness spinning astir us.

It does small for your concentration, arsenic I soon discovered during a clay pigeon lesson.

The clay spins and cavorts crossed a peaty (challenging) upland backdrop and I miss, again. “Line it up, you’ll deed it.” I’m much acrophobic astir hitting the herd of Highland cows grazing a fewer yards beyond the clay traps, remarkably unperturbed by the whip-cracking bangs. “There ya go.” I was amended astatine the preceding archery class, though an lack of cocky Highland beasts munching down the people boards could person thing to bash with it. The Torridon’s acquisition guru, Veshengo Purrum, is caller from an ethereal oversea kayaking travel nether rainbow arcs. He regularly guides groups with Munro-bagging oregon upland biking ambitions. Ours got arsenic acold arsenic the whisky bar, oregon much accurately speaking, arsenic acold arsenic the babe show would stretch, which was a smouldering, time-capsule room (for a ravishingly bully tasting paper from the Torridon’s restaurant)...and, the whisky bar. Observant guests whitethorn notice, supra the drafting country and library, a zodiac-themed ceiling — conscionable 1 of galore odes to Queen Victoria who had a happening for astrology.

The pursuing morning, we near the Highland bacon breakfasts and that heart-thumping loch-to-mountain presumption down for Skye. The aggravated burnt oranges, clarets and peaty browns of the glens raced past successful kaleidoscopic manner arsenic we snaked done Scotland’s chaotic west. My girl yelped with delight arsenic an austere, 13th period castle sprung into presumption – Eilean Donan, the benignant of storybook, Medieval stronghold the tourists came for, teaming with clan paraphernalia and Jacobite rebellion tales. It was rising menacingly supra the gathering constituent of 3 oversea lochs.

We followed the aforesaid circuit autobus of Americans who’d mildly dispensed parenting tips arsenic my daughters larked astir successful the café, crossing the Skye span implicit Loch Alsh, and into a bizarre, upside-down scenery reminiscent of Tasmania. Yes, there’s the aforesaid brushed browns and greens of the mainland, and the knobbly achromatic houses successful glossy achromatic mascara, but determination are besides low-slung, prehistoric-looking trees and sheep navigating the formation pebbles. “It’s hobbit countryside,” my hubby concludes, arsenic we cruise past untamed moorlands and the crooked spines of mountains astatine dusk that could person easy inspired JR Tolkien.

Skye’s north, with its photogenically jagged Old Man of Store, sheer cliffs and aggravated sea, greatly contrasts the island’s soft, evocative southbound — The Garden of Skye — wherever Kinloch Lodge (doubles from £460, including meal and breakfast, kinloch-lodge.co.uk) tips its gourmet-inclined guests disconnected the borderline of the earth, on the Sleat Peninsula. Its charming owner, Isabella MacDonald, is the spawn of the famed MacDonald clan (her framed household histrion harks backmost to the 9th century), and an effortless hostess. She injects a warmth and household lore, excessively often mislaid amid the bonkers plan renovations and banal tick lists of luxury hotels.

Luxury present is sinking your teeth into spanking caller scallops and different artfully cooked coastal bounty skirting the island, rushing disconnected with tupperware scones and Isabella’s coordinates for concealed beaches smothered successful vibrant kelp and land-before-time rocks, and curling up by a spitting occurrence with a solid of whisky and shortbread.

We tin hardly marque retired the boats successful the drizzle and stirring h2o beyond Kinloch’s brushed tract and chaotic beach. We’ve managed to power a toddler tantrum done Armadale Castle’s whimsical ruins, scoffed an full platter of seafood from the Shellfish Shack and A Three Chimneys tasting paper astatine the Talisker Distillery (Skye is arsenic puritanical arsenic locavorism gets). We person slunk smugly backmost into the antiqued, somewhat chintzy clasp of Kinloch arsenic the winds prime up and the airy dips. Ancestral portraits scowl astatine my children tugging aged books from the room and wrestling against elegant footstools, but Isabella pleads with maine to unbend — “I privation radical to consciousness astatine location here, and truly power off.”

We did precisely that, riding retired Storm Ashley with superb wines and a tastebud-shifting paper that the cook conjures up from land treasure — and the hedge-fund homies occasionally chopper successful for. “There were 3 choppers past week, 2 connected the lawn, 1 connected the beach,” we’re told.

We longed for a fewer much nights, to afloat inspect Skye’s artisanal scene, its singular larder of seafood and, mainly, what Kinloch Lodge’s cook would bash with it.

It was an amber informing arsenic we zoomed backmost to the mainland, rattling southbound done whipping rainfall and postcard Highland scenery for Stirling. My determination to spread up for a nighttime successful a swish, woodland log compartment felt ill-fated, arsenic the car lurched sideways successful the upwind and dodged cracked branches scattering the roads.

But humble wood cabins, these are not. The four, self-catered Treehouses astatine Leckie (from £245 per nighttime (min 2-night stay), leckietreehouses.co.uk) are amended described arsenic sturdy (thank God) timber plan dens, suspended precocious successful the histrion canopy with views crossed the Gargunnock Hills, and underfloor heating. Ours, Wren, is axenic Scandi-Scot, with a cavernous, blonde timber interior and stylish, ebony accents connected the log burner, the ladder connected the children’s fitted bunk furniture and the model frames that emergence to the cabin’s extortion and propulsion successful the sharp, meal light.

Having hardly flooded the excitement of a bunk bed, our eldest inhaled Leckie’s workplace eggs with due butter-on-toast with the committedness of a greeting soak successful the al fresco bath. There was the privateness and bid present of a rental, on with precocious spec interiors and crisp linen of a hotel. There were besides squiggles of walks, opening astatine the steps that descended from our decking country into rolling parkland, snaking past ponds and done past woodland, wherever the cabin’s picnic backpack was poised for action.

We were connected the location tally now. The motorways’ grey, sedating monotony felt worlds distant from our cinematic loop done the Highlands — adjacent the Peak District’s glassy-eyed quality paled successful comparison.

The instrumentality to immoderate escapade oregon drawn retired vacation is to extremity connected a precocious note. Yorkshire’s Middleton Lodge (rooms from £285 including continental breakfast, middletonlodge.co.uk) — conveniently placed for immoderate bolts up oregon beneath the border, oregon successful our case, a spoiling finalé — roseate to the challenge. The old, rambling estate-turned-hotel, known for its rustic-chic rooms and haute, hearty nutrient has yet opened its spa, wherever driving muscles tin agelong retired successful a sprawling, heated pool, oregon beryllium pummelled successful 1 of the woody attraction cabins. And while, yes, determination are the Christopher Robin-esque trails and aged wagon heaving with pastries and pecan granola astatine breakfast, a existent item of this edifice is its gardens. Particularly the whimsically beauteous walled garden, which seems to displacement effortlessly done the seasons, from gangly blonde writer and preened topiary to a riot of colour, fruits and scents.

We waddled done Darlington presumption for the speedy Kings Cross work — similar a plump, shortbread-fed duck with her glossy ducklings, their cheeks a shadiness of Highland crimson, flush with caller aerial and adventure.