Scotland FAQs
Too embarrassed to ask? Spare your blushes – we’ve got you covered.
Midges, wildcats and tricky words.
Q DOESN’T IT ALWAYS RAIN?
No. Some parts are as dry as the driest parts of England, and only one Scottish city (Glasgow) appears in the UK’s 10 wettest – 8 are English. In the north-west Highlands the famous garden, Inverewe, is sub tropical with palm trees growing. Daylight in summer is over 17 hours, the longest in Britain. Average temperatures are only a degree less.
Q WHAT ABOUT STALKING?
Deer stalking can happen between 1 July and 20 October; grouse shooting from 12 August to 1 December. The impact on access to hills is patchy and normally means following local guidance rather than a blanket ban on access, and shoots rarely take place on Sundays. You can check for any restrictions by area here: www.bit.ly/stalkinginfo
Q ISN’T SCOTLAND RENDERED IMPASSABLE BY MIDGES?
Midges are a feature of northern Europe, Russia and China generally, not just June-September in Scotland, and while the climate, geography and habitats of the country can lead to some intense concentrations of the ‘wee bastards’, attacks aren’t certain or unavoidable. Midges like damp, warm, still air, peaty soils, rushes, dark colours, flapping collars and cuffs, dawn and dusk. If the sky’s clear or humidity low, the breeze is above walking pace, or you’re not begging for it by putting yourself in the middle of the aforementioned midge paradises, you dramatically shift the odds in your favour. Avon’s Skin So Soft Original Dry Oil Spray is a celebrated deterrent, and a modern repellant called Smidge has proven effective at blocking midges’ sense of smell – the means by which they find you – and unlike DEET is safe to wear under clothing. The firm behind it also produces a useful midge forecast: www.smidgeup.com/midge-forecast
Q ‘ SHOULD I BRUSH UP MY GAELIC?’
It will certainly be appreciated in the islands and the Highlands if you can say Madainn mhath (MAT-een-vah), “good morning” and Feasgar math (FESkra mah), “good afternoon” but according to the latest census only 1.1% nationally speak fluent Gaelic.
Names for landscape features look complicated, but things get a lot more familiar-feeling when you know the common ones like...
Q ISN’T IT JUST TOO BIG?
Well it is big – did you know that the 1400 square mile Cairngorms National Park is bigger than Samoa? That Rannoch Moor alone is as big as Bermuda? And you could fit Yosemite AND Shenandoah National Parks into the Cairngorms? But the amount of food you eat in a week would look pretty darn intimidating presented to you in one sitting – and there’s a lifetime’s-worth of walking sustenance in Scotland. Look at it one portion at a time and they’ll gradually join up into a giddying – rather than a frightening – whole.
Q HOW DO I SAY…?
Scottish Gaelic (pronounced
gal-ick) has eight fewer letters and is actually simpler to learn than English. Five rules of thumb and some enlightening examples will give you a big leg-up. ● Roll your Rs ● Stress the first syllable ● Pronounce both ‘MH’ and ‘BH’ as V ● Say F, L, LL, M, N, NN and S the same as in English, as with B, D and G when at the beginning of words ● In the middle of words, BH, DH, GH and MH are usually silent if they follow a vowel Stob Bàn ‘stop baan’ An Stuc ‘uhn stu-(kh)k’ Aonach Mor ‘ur-nuhkh maur’ Stob Coire an Laoigh ‘stop corr-uhn luuy’ Stob Ghabhar ‘stop go-uhr’ Meall Chuaich ‘myowl coo-ich’ Sgurr an Doire Leathain ‘skuur uhn dorruh lay-hin’ Buachaille Etive Mor ‘Burchala etiv more’ Aonach Eagach ‘Urnach eggach’
Q ISN’T IT TOO FAR AWAY FOR SOUTHERN ENGLANDERS?
You’re kidding. You can fly from Bristol to Edinburgh, Nottingham to Glasgow or Luton to Inverness in summer for less than the cost of the petrol, and a fraction of the time: £50 and under 90 minutes. You can hire a car from the airport for a week for under £150 eeeeeeasy.
Q AND BOTHIES?
Bothies are free huts in the hills, open to all comers. If you’d like to use them, join the Mountain Bothies Association, the charity that renovates, maintains and repairs them to a habitable standard for walkers. For £25 you get the Member’s Handbook, a monthly newsletter and, the location of around 100 free shelters in some of Britain’s wildest places: www.mountainbothies. org.uk/join/
Q SHOULD I BE WORRIED ABOUT BIG CATS IN THE WILD?
It’s a popular misconception that lynx – metre-long cats that predate on sheep and deer – roam Scottish hills. In fact they went extinct in UK in the Middle Ages and haven’t come back. But the smaller Scottish wildcat (a bodybuilding tabby with a black-tipped tail) was saved from extinction when 20,000 Scottish gamekeepers, who killed them as vermin, were called up to fight in World War One, and an unknown number in the hundreds or low thousands survive in the wild. Despite a man-killing reputation that persisted into the 1950s, they pose no threat, except to the virtue of your moggy.
Q WHERE CAN I WALK? THERE ARE NO PATHS MARKED ON THE MAP!
Pretty much anywhere in the open thanks to the Land Reform Act 2003!
Walkers, cyclists and horse-riders share the same rights on paths, but local authorities are under no obligation to signpost them. Unlike in England and Wales, Ordnance Survey doesn’t mark rights of way on its Scottish maps any differently to ordinary paths – so it’s a black dash line – because no definitive record of rights of way exists north of the border. But nor does the OS mark as many paths on Scottish maps as it tends to in England and Wales, where there are more walkers in popular areas to wear-in very obvious paths. This increases visitors’ reliance on routes from local guides, magazines and books.
Q WHAT USEFUL SITES SHOULD I BOOKMARK?
● www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors – Scottish Natural Heritage’s resources for walkers ● www.visitscotland.com/see-do/ active/walking – Events & inspiration for walkers from VisitScotland ● www.mwis.org.uk – the best mountain-oriented weather service ● www.sais.gov.uk the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, a vital point of reference for all hill-goers during the winter months ● www.walkhighlands.co.uk is a rich hill-walker’s resource for routes, news – and pronunciations!
● www.syha.org.uk details all the Scottish Youth Hostels, many in prime hill-walking locations