Gosh, it is hard not to have all ten photographs from the Outer Hebrides. I do believe that North Uist and Harris are the most beautiful places in Scotland. Visited on a sunny day, the combination of white sand, turquoise water, mountains, and wonderful light is hard to beat!
Nonetheless, I have tried here to represent a bunch of places I visited in 2025, from the French Pyrenees, Shetland
So here are my top ten views from a year of guiding in 2025. Enjoy! If you’d like to join us on a walking holiday, canoe or mountain adventure, check out our open events, or enquire about a private tour
Lairig Ghru, Northern Cairngorms. In February 2025, we ran a five-day Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Winter Skills Residential. On day three the team of ten participants hiked up to the Cairngorm plateau to look for the site of the 1971 Cairngorm Disaster. We had some tremendous views down to the Lairig Ghru, a big U-shaped valley that cuts through the Northern Cairngorms.
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Loch Ericht, April 2025 – In early April, I had a fantastic two-day trip to Loch Ericht and Ben Alder. The objective was to climb Ben Alder, a really remote Scottish Munro. Instead of a long walk or bike into the mountains, we used a canoe. After canoeing for 4 hours down the loch, we found a campsite. In the morning, it was cold with blue skies. We loch was completely calm with wonderful reflections.
Erraid, May 2025 – In May, I led a walking tour to Argyll and the Isle of Mull. A big highlight for me, was a visit to the island of Erraid. The combination of granite, beach and turquoise water was wonderful. Getting to this beach – Traigh Gheal – takes a bit of effort. You need to cross some tidal sands and hike across some boggy ground. The reward, however, of finding this wonderful beach is great.
Tobermory Lighthouse, Rubha nan Gail, May 2025 – This photo was taken on the same walking tour in May. I love the way the wall leads the eye towards the lighthouse and the brooding sky, with big cumulonimbus clouds.
Vallay, North Uist, July 2025 – This is one of three photos from the Outer Hebrides. In July, I took a group of clients on a walking holiday to Barra, the Uists and South Harris. The tour is running twice in 2026. Vallay is a tidal island. You need to carefully work out when low tide is, then you can undertake the 3 km walk across tidal sands to Vallay, an uninhabited island with beautiful beaches. The island is still farmed, with cattle and arable crops. I like this view of the sandy track through a field of barley.
Seilebost Beach, South Harris, July 2025 – A second photo from our tour to the Outer Hebrides. This photo was taken from Seilebost beach, looking across to Luskentyre beach. The white sand and turquoise water were wonderful. It was also really hot, surprisingly so for Scotland.
Scarista Beach, South Harris, July 2025 – My third view from the Outer Hebrides. This is Scarista beach. Stunning colours!
Lunna, Shetland, July 2025 – This was a private, walking and botany-themed tour to Shetland in July. We visited a peninsula called Lunna. The light and air quality were tremendous. I like the shape of the hill, the walkers in the foreground and the pretty clouds in the distance.
Quinag, Assynt, September 2025 – In September, I guided a literary-themed tour to Caithness, Assynt and Orkney. On this walk in Assynt, we had wonderful views across to a mountain called Quinag. A special moment for me was doing a poetry reading to the group, a poem called Assynt Man, by Norman McCaig.
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out
these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone,
and left, on the hard rock below –
the ruffled foreland –
this frieze of mountains, filed
on the blue air –
Stac Polly,
Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven,
Canisp –
a frieze and
a litany.
Who owns this landscape?
Has owning anything to do with love?
For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human
we even have quarrels. –
When I intrude too confidently
it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand
or puts in my way
a quaking bog or loch
where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily
away, refusing to notice
the rouged rocks, the mascara
under a dripping ledge, even
the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend
it gets sick for me in my absence,
though I get
sick for it. Yet I love it
with special gratitude,since
it sends me no letters, is never
jealous and, expecting nothing
from me, gets nothing but
cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? –
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? –
The man who bought it or
I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for
this landscape is
masterless
and intractable in any terms
that are human.
It is docile only to the weather
and its indefatigable lieutenants –
wind, water and frost.
The wind whets the high ridges
and stunts silver birches and alders.
Rain falling down meets
springs gushing up –
they gather and carry down to the Minch
tons of sour soil, making bald
the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost
thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist,
bursts open the sandstone plates,
the armour of Suilven;
he bleeds stories down chutes and screes,
smelling of gun powder.
Loch Kennard, Perthshire, October 2025 – My last view is an early morning photo of Loch Kennard, on a frosty morning in October. Debbie and I were supervising a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition. We woke to a wonderful view across the loch. I like the dew on the spider webs, the reflection on the water and the hazy yellow light.
