Kinloch Rannoch: Magnificent Highlands scenery is hard to beat

The shores of Loch Rannoch with the peak of Schiehallion.

As you drive out of the village of Kinloch Rannoch, the classic Scottish roadside sign exclaims: “Haste ye back!”

I would need no second invitation to return. The village is on the eastern edge of Loch Rannoch, surely one of the most beautiful spots in Scotland, if not the world.

Nine miles long, the loch is mighty and magnificent. Encircled by 250 acres of Central Highlands landscape, it sits in the shadow of the majestic Schiehallion. Known by the romantic nickname of “The Fairy Mountain”, this Munro is responsible for an impressive lager and an even more impressive hike.

You will feel like you have earned at least a gallon of the beer after revelling in the stunning vistas from the summit of this epic peak.

Schiehallion is seen above a cloud inversion over Loch Rannoch.

Prone to storm-force gales one minute and blazing heat the next, Loch Rannoch is subjected to every weather system under the sun in the space of a few minutes.

Out of nowhere, white horses begin galloping across the loch – before being brought to a shuddering halt just as rapidly.

You can happily sit for hours watching the waters morph from grey to green to deep blue before your very eyes. It is a mesmerising sight.

We are lucky enough to enjoy this view from our bedroom at the four-star Loch Rannoch Hotel.

There we are greeted by a lovely surprise: a plate of delicious home-baked biscuits. The words “Welcome to Loch Rannoch” are flanked by celebratory balloons, all etched in chocolate icing.

This is not the only culinary delight served at the hotel, a 19th century hunting lodge that has recently undergone a £3.5m refurbishment.

The bistro called The Wild Brownie (named not after a chocolate cake that refuses to be house-trained, but after a species of trout greatly prized by local anglers) provides excellent food.

The “Scotland on a plate” Classic Chicken Balmoral – a chicken breast stuffed with haggis and slathered in whisky cream sauce – is thoroughly recommended.

The hotel’s fine-dining restaurant, The Estate Room, is of an even higher standard. It makes superb use of local produce. Make sure you try the exquisite pan-fried Scottish Coast hand-dived scallops with fresh apple salad.

If you have sampled a few too many post-prandial drams in the hotel’s Whisky Bar, a visit to the hotel’s School of Adventure the next morning should help blow away the cobwebs.

The activity centre offers kayaking, sailing, paddle-boarding and wild swimming, as well as boasting a sleek new spa, a squash court and a very challenging indoor climbing wall. It is so steep, just looking at it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

We hire bikes from the School of Adventure and go for a memorable 35-mile trip around the loch and on to Rannoch Station, the most remote in the country.

The station is on the extremely picturesque West Highland Line, which has been used extensively by filmmakers. It was, for example, the location for a stand-out scene in Trainspotting.

And a short journey north up the line from Rannoch is the spectacular Glenfinnan Viaduct, which the Hogwarts Express crosses in the Harry Potter films. Truly, the West Highland Line is a place full of magic.

It is an exhilarating cycle ride up to the station, which is literally the end of the road. You climb from the sunlit calmness of the hotel to the windswept lunar landscape of Rannoch Moor, one of the last truly untamed areas in the country.

Your destination is the famous Tearoom on the station platform. One bite of their justly celebrated coffee and walnut cake makes the punishing ride seem worthwhile.

On the wall of the Tearoom is a framed, hand-written verse that the former Poet Laureate of Scotland, Jackie Kay, sent to the owners as a love letter to a very special place.

It closes with the lines: “Rannoch Moor, Rannoch dear.

Beloved place, the best: back here.”

Loch Rannoch is the ideal restorative, rural retreat for weary, stressed-out urbanites eager to recharge their batteries.

It is also a very welcome reminder to the millions of us who live in overcrowded cities that Britain still contains vast areas of wilderness that command both awe and respect. It puts you in your place – in a good way.

On our departure from the hotel, we are given a letter by the management. With a Shakespearean flourish, it is entitled: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

They took the words right out of my mouth.

P.S. The 99-mile-long West Highland Line is an astounding feat of engineering that took more than 5,000 navvies over five years to complete. They managed the apparently impossible task of constructing the line across the seriously inhospitable Rannoch Moor by “floating” the railway tracks on a raft of brushwood and a bed of ash and rubble. The work was extremely harsh. However, the navvies found solace in the fact that, as the local water was brackish, they were permitted to drink beer. The perfect relief after such thirsty work.