Attraction in Highland

Handa Island off the northwest Sutherland coast near Scourie is one of the finest seabird colonies in Britain, a small uninhabited island accessible by ferry from Tarbet whose combination of the great sandstone cliffs on its northern and western faces and the extraordinary concentration of breeding seabirds including approximately 200,000 individuals of various species creates one of the most impressive wildlife watching experiences available in Scotland. The Scottish Wildlife Trust manages the island as a wildlife reserve. The great stack of Handa, a detached column of Torridonian sandstone separated from the island's northern cliff by a narrow channel, supports one of the densest concentrations of breeding guillemots in Britain, with approximately 100,000 birds occupying every available ledge in a mass of activity, noise and movement that is one of the most impressive wildlife spectacles in the British Isles. Razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars, great skuas and puffins also breed on the island in considerable numbers. The walk around the island perimeter, a circuit of approximately six kilometres, provides access to all sections of the cliff colony and includes the most dramatic viewpoints over the stack from the cliff edge above. The combination of the stack scenery, the bird numbers and the completely unspoiled island landscape of heather moorland, lochs and Torridonian sandstone geology creates a wildlife island experience of exceptional quality that rewards the effort of the ferry crossing.

Cairngorm Mountain at 1,245 metres is the sixth highest summit in Britain and the highest peak within the Cairngorm massif that forms the core of the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands. The mountain provides some of the most extensive and most serious high mountain terrain in Britain, its plateau summit and the great corries cut into its northern and eastern faces offering exceptional walking in summer and world-class ski mountaineering and winter climbing in the right conditions. The Cairngorm Mountain funicular railway, one of the highest mountain railways in Britain, provides year-round mechanical access to the plateau edge for visitors who prefer not to walk the ascent. The summit plateau of Cairngorm and the broader Cairngorm plateau extending toward Ben Macdui and beyond is the largest area of high arctic mountain terrain in Britain, a landscape of shattered quartzite, permanent snow patches, high-altitude lochs and the characteristic dwarf plant communities of the sub-arctic environment. The species that inhabit this landscape, including ptarmigan, dotterel, snow bunting, mountain hare and the insects associated with snowfield and late-melting snow patches, are found nowhere else in Britain at such density and scale, and the Cairngorms plateau is therefore one of the most important conservation areas in the British Isles. The Ptarmigan restaurant at the upper funicular station at 1,097 metres is the highest restaurant in Britain and provides a remarkable viewpoint over the summit plateau and the surrounding mountains. In winter it overlooks the ski area, which at its best can offer challenging alpine skiing on north-facing runs that hold snow reliably when lower Scottish ski areas are struggling. The walk from the car park at Coire Cas to the summit cairn is a relatively straightforward hill walk in summer conditions but the summit plateau is notorious for rapid deterioration in weather and navigation is essential for safe travel away from the tourist path.

The Glenfinnan Viaduct is the most celebrated piece of railway engineering in Scotland and one of the most famous in the world, a concrete viaduct of twenty-one arches carrying the West Highland Line 30 metres above the valley floor at the head of Loch Shiel in the Highlands, its combination of elegant construction, dramatic mountain and loch setting and global fame as the location of the Hogwarts Express sequence in the Harry Potter films making it a destination for visitors from every country. Built between 1897 and 1901 by Robert McAlpine's construction company using innovative mass concrete technology, the viaduct demonstrates that functional infrastructure and landscape beauty need not be in conflict. The viaduct curves gently as it crosses the valley, following the natural contour of the hillside rather than cutting across it in a straight line, and this gentle curve gives the structure its characteristic profile in the most famous viewpoint photographs taken from the hillside to the south. The 21 semicircular arches, each spanning approximately 15 metres, carry the railway in a graceful sweep that complements the surrounding mountain scenery rather than dominating it. The Jacobite Steam Train, which operates the summer service between Fort William and Mallaig, crosses the viaduct twice daily and provides the dramatic image of a steam locomotive on the great curve that has become one of the defining photographs of the Scottish Highlands. The valley of Glenfinnan carries enormous historical weight quite apart from its railway heritage. It was here at the head of Loch Shiel on 19 August 1745 that Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Jacobite standard and began the last rebellion that came closest to restoring the Stuart monarchy to Britain, the campaign that ended at Culloden eight months later. The Glenfinnan Monument on the lochside, managed by the National Trust for Scotland, marks the spot with a tall column topped by a kilted Highlander. The combination of the viaduct, the monument, the loch scenery and the steam train makes Glenfinnan one of the most layered and most rewarding destinations in the Highlands.

Inverewe Garden near Poolewe in Wester Ross is the most extraordinary horticultural achievement in Scotland, a garden of over 2,500 plant species created by Osgood Mackenzie from 1862 onward on a bare peninsula of Torridonian sandstone on the shores of Loch Ewe, the warming influence of the North Atlantic Drift allowing the cultivation in the open air of plants from the Himalayas, South America, the Southern Ocean islands and New Zealand that could not survive the Scottish climate without the exceptional shelter and warmth provided by this specific location at a latitude comparable to Moscow and Labrador. The National Trust for Scotland manages the garden. Mackenzie's achievement was to shelter the exposed and windswept peninsula from the Atlantic gales using a windbreak of Scots pine and other trees, then to create a series of gardens within the shelter of the windbreak that exploited the warmth of the Gulf Stream current to support an extraordinary collection of plants from the world's temperate and subtropical zones. The planting developed over sixty years by Mackenzie and subsequently expanded by his daughter Lady Mairi Sawyer into the collection of approximately 2,500 species visible today. The garden's position on the shores of Loch Ewe provides a magnificent backdrop of sea and mountain against which the exotic planting creates a visual contrast of remarkable quality. The Himalayan plants growing on the shore of a Scottish sea loch, with the mountains of Wester Ross visible across the water, create an experience of horticultural wonder available nowhere else in Scotland.

Loch Ness in the Great Glen of the Scottish Highlands is the most famous lake in the world, its extraordinary dimensions, the depth and darkness of its waters and the enduring legend of the Loch Ness Monster combining to create a destination that draws visitors from every country on Earth. The loch is 37 kilometres long, over 2 kilometres wide in places and reaches a maximum depth of 227 metres, making it the largest freshwater body in Britain by volume and one of the deepest lakes in Europe. The dark colour of the water, stained by peat washed from the surrounding moorland, reduces visibility to a few metres below the surface and creates conditions that have sustained the monster legend with remarkable persistence. The first modern sighting of a large unknown creature in the loch was reported in 1933 and the story spread rapidly around the world, generating a sustained media interest that has never entirely faded. Hundreds of subsequent sightings, sonar surveys, underwater photography expeditions and scientific investigations have failed either to confirm or conclusively disprove the existence of a large unknown animal in the loch, and the mystery has proved remarkably durable given the resources applied to resolving it. Environmental DNA studies of the loch conducted in 2018 found no evidence for a large reptile but did suggest the presence of large quantities of eel DNA, which has not resolved the debate to anyone's full satisfaction. The Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition at Drumnadrochit provides a thorough and reasonably sceptical examination of the legend and the scientific evidence, and the ruins of Urquhart Castle on a promontory above the loch provide one of the finest viewpoints over the water and one of the most historically significant medieval fortifications in the Highlands. The Great Glen Way long-distance walking route follows the loch shore for much of its length, providing excellent access to the loch landscape.