Northern Highlands & Islands
© Lonely Planet Publications 353 Northern Highlands & Islands The northern Highlands epitomises most visitors’ romantic notion of Scotland. Vast, wild ex- panses punctuated by sparkling, steely blue lochs, and towering mountain ranges veined with snow, their summits often lost in swirling cloud. This is powerful country, and you can almost feel the desolation and tragedy of the Clearances – the silence can be deafening. But the romanti- cism of the region is inescapable too, and if you’ve ever heard the call of the wild, you’re likely to be mesmerised here. There’s something unique and Scottish in all of this – it’s the ethereal light that squeezes through the clouds and tangos over Europe’s northern fringe, illuminating its rugged splendour and changing its appearance by the hour, or even by the minute. The stunning scenery extends offshore to the Isle of Skye, where the jagged peaks of the Cuillin Hills tear at the mist, and the ghosts of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald haunt the hallways of Dunvegan Castle. Skye is a paradise for walkers, climbers and wildlife NORTHERN HIGHLANDS enthusiasts, with its dramatic mountains, lonely lochs and scenic coastlines, home to golden eagles, peregrine falcons, otters, deer and seals. & ISLANDS & ISLANDS And that magical light intensifies as you head west to the Outer Hebrides – the ‘isles at the edge of the sea’ – with their landscapes of peat bog, lochan and bare, glaciated gneiss. These harsh landscapes are softened by glittering shell-sand beaches, wildflower-strewn machair, and buttercup meadows where the outlines of ruined crofts are visible in the turf like fossils in a stone.
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