‘I was nervous before my solo stay in a remote Scottish Highlands cabin – but the solitude is glorious’

As a lone female traveller, the prospect of staying in a hut on Rannoch Moor is daunting, but the silence of the mountains and lochs turns out to be ‘the ultimate luxury’

In the gloaming, the trees stand dark and impenetrable on either side of the path. An owl, wide-faced and pale as a spectre, glides out of the pines ahead of me. Heart pounding, I pick up speed and continue uphill, the silence thick around me.

Just a few minutes earlier, I had been scuffing my feet in the sand by the loch shore, watching as the clouds draped themselves across the top of the Grampians. In the absence of other people, Loch Laidon, silvery in the half-light, had been mine to enjoy; in the woods, however, my solitude feels unnerving.

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