Water everywhere...
The Highlands can see a drop of rain and water is the theme of many of the Grampians’ top walks. Lots of you shared your love for the seven-mile circuit of Loch Muick* beneath Lochnagar in Royal Deeside, with reader Kat Hobbs saying: “I can’t recommend it enough, it’s stunning!” The river which feeds it, the Dee, is the fastest-flowing in Scotland and has the highest source of any waterway in Britain, 4000 feet up on Braeriach*, before dropping through the gorge of the Linn of Dee* on its 85-mile salmon-rich run to the sea at Aberdeen. Other fast and furious cascades include the Black Spout* falls near Pitlochry and the famous
Steall Falls in the Nevis Gorge. Humans too have carved incredible waterways, including the Caledonian Canal which links man-made channels with the lochs of Dochfour, Ness, Oich and Lochy in a 60-mile channel through the Great Glen from east coast to west, a route also trodden by the Great Glen Way. Or for a shorter towpath walk, trace the Crinan
Canal across the Kintyre Peninsula from Ardrishaig on Loch Gilp to Crinan on the Sound of Jura, a nine-mile trip that saved ships the tortuous journey around the Mull. If you like water salty and shores golden, then reader Elaine Campbell recommends the east coast and the beaches at Aberdeen, Balmedie and Newburgh, and Sally Middleton says: “Rattray Head has miles and miles of sand and a lovely picturesque lighthouse. You can walk for hours and never see a soul!”