This has to be Australia's most breathtaking, magical landscape
And yet I wonder why the owners bothered, because just 50 yards from this film set is the Mossman River: a natural waterpark in a tropical rainforest, with swimmable waterfalls, still wallows and shaded white sand beaches. It's as beautiful as a fever dream, as cool as champagne and, since the crocodiles don't come up this far, as benign as a boatload of nuns.
The Daintree Rainforest is ten million years older than the Amazon and the most ancient on the planet. It rises on Australia's Mount Carbine Tablelands, where the bull kauri conifers and red cedar trees scrape the water from the clouds as they bump across the top of the Atherton Tablelands.
There's a little-used footpath from Silky Oaks to a place called Fig Tree Rapids. The first stretch is the perfect location for those TV explorers who make hardcore survival shows — authentically wild, but just moments from the restaurant, spa and that fake jungle pool — but the deeper it goes into the forest, the trickier it gets, with trees brought down by cyclones blocking a trail that frequently vanishes, or divides into identical branches, like they do in fairytales.
I hesitate at the first bend in the path. I should be used to the forest by now — I've walked alone in jungles from the Darien to the DRC — but, deep down, I'm still scared of the woods. I think we all are.
• Read our full guide to Australia
Some — men, mostly — cut walking sticks when they enter woodlands in a symbolic act of authority over the trees. Others talk in whispers so as not to waken what lurks within. In Finland I was told to wear my jacket inside out so as not to vanish in the metsanpeitto, or forest fog. In Papua New Guinea I was warned not to call my guide by his real name so the tree ghosts wouldn't kill him, and in the Carpathians there's a more prosaic fear: bears.
Our species came down from the trees about four million years ago. As Africa split along the Great Rift Valley, new mountain ranges changed rainfall patterns. The tropical forests in which our ancestors evolved were replaced by grasslands better suited to the new aridity, and we had to adapt.
We've now been out of the woods so long that the familiarity of home has become fear of the unknown, and as I blunder through the world's oldest rainforest, I wonder if those whose ancestors once lived here feel the same trepidation.
I can also see a situation involving a search party and the overuse of the phrase 'bloody Pom', so I waymark every junction like Hansel without Gretel, in the hope I will find my way back. If not, the old rainforest distress signal of a rock bashed repeatedly against the buttress roots of a yellow carabeen tree can be heard for miles. The vibrations are also a good way of informing snakes of your presence.
I see no snakes — Tourism Australia is very keen that I mention that — but Boyd's forest dragons (imagine an 8in T. rex) are everywhere, and the huge webs of the harmless giant orb weaver spiders are strung between the pungent dead horse trees and the light-sapping red pendas.
I watch a paradise kingfisher, with his fancy tail; electric-blue Ulysses butterflies; and I spot a sugar glider — basically a flying possum — soaring between the trees. Feral pigs, heard but not seen, flee in panic; orange-footed scrubfowl dart clucking through the undergrowth and as I round a bend I spot a golden bowerbird: a brilliant impressionist who spends his adult life building show homes to attract a mate.
This one's got a bit of the Daffy Duck about him. He doesn't spot me because he's demolishing a bower with a fury that can only be for one of two reasons. Either he's evicting a rival from his manor, or he's a bachelor frustrated by the inadequacy of his interior design skills to attract a wife. I suspect the latter. Shouldn't have gone with the Farrow & Ball, mate. That's so Y2K.
Fig Tree Rapids is the halfway point on the Mossman's sprint to the sea, the water spouting in white torrents through the gaps in a wall of giant boulders worn smooth over eons. Below the falls, it collects in still, tannin-rich pools, where rainbowfish flash in the sunlight and archerfish lurk in the shade, squirting jets of water with deadly accuracy to down reckless damselflies.
I've been told I might see the sparrow-sized giant petaltail — the biggest dragonfly in the world and a species that's been here as long as the forest — so I find a still pool in which to lie in wait. None shows, but as my blood cools the primal anxiety is replaced by wonder.
Up to my left, the Tableland is covered in a tablecloth of cloud. Billions of drops from millions of leaves trickle earthwards, irrigating 3,000 plant species — of which 920 are trees — as it percolates through soil that smells of pepper and vanilla.
It gathers in the rivulets and creeks that feed the tributaries that wind into the river like braids on a rope falling 3,440ft in a 15-mile journey to the Coral Sea, where it evaporates to form the clouds that make the tablecloth. Driven by gravity and fuelled by the sun, it's a machine so perfect that it blows my mind.
• 16 of the best Australian tours
The forest it feeds is a beautiful miracle. It nurtures and heals, repairs and recycles and, at 180 million years old, is the closest we've got to the life eternal. Every living thing in this wonderland has, in previous lives, been other things. Every second of every minute here is spent in a state of wonder, and when I report back to the hotel four hours later than expected the receptionist raises an eyebrow. Bloody Pom.
The next day I meet with the forest guides Levi Williams and Chase Walker. They're from the Kuku Yalanji community, which has lived here since long before in the woods were named after an East Anglian geologist called Daintree and the river after a gold mining politician called Mosman from New South Wales.
For the Kuku Yalanji, the forest is the Kaba Kada — or rainy place — and the river is Manjal Dimbi, named after the benign mountain spirit that keeps evil at bay from the valley. Does that mean the forest is safe?
'Let me put it this way,' Williams says. He points at a large-leafed growth not dissimilar to giant hogweed. 'Have you seen this plant before?' I have, I tell him, on my hike to Fig Tree Rapids. Can we eat it?
'No. This is the most dangerous plant in the world,' Williams says. 'We call it gympie gympie, the stinging tree or the suicide plant. It can kill a horse.'
He turns the leaf with his stick. 'See those fine hairs? They're silica-tipped. They embed themselves in the skin and deliver a neurotoxin. We had a foreigner go hiking alone here. She saw these big, soft leaves and picked a bunch to use as toilet paper. That was 15 years ago. She's still taking the painkillers.'
A flashback of me the day before, skipping between the gympie-gympies and the dead horse trees like Goldilocks, brings on a cold sweat, but Williams has moved on.
'The second most dangerous species in the forest is the cassowary,' he says. 'Australia's second largest bird: 6ft tall, with a 5in claw that can split you open. It's my spirit animal, but if I see one, I run. As for bilngkumu — or saltwater crocodile — they don't come this far upstream, but if we see one downriver, or the kurrujuwa bird warns us, and we need to cross, we splash the water to let him know we want to come in.'
Does that work? Williams shrugs. 'It has mixed results.'
Walker agrees that Far North Queensland has the odd hazard. 'But our mob has been living here for tens of thousands of years,' she says. 'The forest was our supermarket. The men would fetch the meat, the women the fruit and veg, the teenage boys the fish, and the girls would find the seeds and nuts. But the old people had the most important job. They looked after the kids, taking them on walks through the forest and teaching them what was good and bad. So we grew up with the right knowledge, and that knowledge is preserved in the community.'
So could Walker live in the woods? 'I reckon I'd be all right,' she says. 'What about you?'
I'd give myself seven days, max.Chris Haslam travelled as a guest of Tourism Australia (australia.com). A 14-night luxury tour focusing on the flora and fauna of Northern Queensland, with two nights at Silky Oaks Lodge and three nights at Orpheus Island, costs from £10,995pp, including flights to Brisbane and transfers to Townsville (wildlifeworldwide.com)
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Can crocodiles and canoeists coexist at Australia's 2032 Olympic Games?
Andrew Miller is only minutes into a crash course on using a V8 ocean ski when he first drops the C-bomb. The former red beret paratrooper and current president of a Rockhampton canoe club is explaining to a first-time paddler why he won't begin on a K1 – the kind of craft the world's best canoe sprinters will paddle when and if they come here to central Queensland to compete at the 2032 Olympic Games. 'It's like sitting on a pencil,' Miller says. 'If a crocodile so much as tapped your hull, you'd be straight into the drink!' The club secretary, John Mackenzie, admonishes: 'You had to use the C-word.' To be fair to Miller, the proximity of the world's largest living reptile is not much of a secret. On the wall of the humble green shed belonging to the Fitzroy Canoe Club is a mascot of sorts: a toy croc called Fitzy. Pinned to the noticeboard are tips on being 'Croc Wise'. The club's paddling area is a known crocodile habitat, the note reads. Enter boats 'briskly'. Don't drag arms and legs in the water. If you capsize, get out as soon as possible. In March, the Queensland government announced that the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton, about 500km north of Brisbane, would host rowing and canoeing events at the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Scattered along the banks of the Fitzroy are signs warning of injury or death from saltwater crocodiles. A four-metre croc can be right beside you in the water, invisible, one reads. Visitors to the 'beef capital of Australia' are extremely unlikely to see a live saltie. But they won't miss representations of the prehistoric ambush predator throughout the grand sandstone and wrought iron buildings of the river port. In the lane behind the newly refurbished Rockhampton Museum of Art is a crocodile mural, 18 metres long and five metres high. But now the C-bomb has been dropped, the jokes are carpeted. We hop out to our boats atop the backs of crocodiles, Miller reckons. But don't worry, the crocs aren't hungry – 'we feed them all the time'. After the gags, Miller gets serious. You won't encounter a croc, he promises. Just enjoy the river, there isn't a better one between here and the mighty Murray. And with that, as the pinks and purples of dawn filter through the leaves of paperbarks that line the Fitzroy's banks, the canoeists paddle off into the mist that rises from the chalky brown water. Corellas screech from towering gums. Pelicans break the still surface of the river. An osprey peers down from the branches of a dead tree. The kayak quivers as its rudder hits a clump of duckweed. The canoeists paddle upstream, away from the city and the barrage that divides the Fitzroy between its salt and freshwater reaches. This piece of infrastructure is one reason Miller contends the river is 'pristine'. Unlike those to the south, the freshwater Fitzroy is not swept by tides, lined by mud and mangrove or racked by wind and wave. That concrete barrier, built as a water storage system to help meet the region's water supply needs, also marks a boundary on the government's Queensland crocodile management plan between targeted management and general management zones. Upstream of the barrage for 20km, park rangers are tasked with removing 'all large crocodiles' and any croc 'displaying dangerous behaviour' from the water. After a couple of kilometres, a pair of canoeists pass through a stretch of river they claim is the territory of a croc about the length at which it is officially considered 'large' – that is, longer than two metres. A few kilometres farther upstream is the spot that one canoe club member sighted a 4.5 metre saltie two years ago. After several weeks, it was captured and removed. This is winter, too – the same time of year that sunny Queensland will host the summer Olympics – and the period in which crocs are most easy to spot, basking their cold blood on riverbanks. Yet, statistically, Miller is almost certain to be right. The Boyne River, more than 100km to the south, is officially considered the southern boundary of typical crocodile habitat. Here in the lower reaches of croc country, the number and density of these apex predators is far lower than in the faraway tropics to the north. A government monitoring program estimates the number of crocodiles in rivers of the Cape York Peninsula – more than 1,500km to the north – at three crocodiles per kilometre. That ratio declines southward, down to 0.2 crocs per km on the Fitzroy. The canoe club has been paddling here since the late 1970s without incident. They are on the water almost every day, often starting in the dark. So, too, their rowing counterparts, who are also looking forward to hosting the Olympics. Mackenzie says he has been paddling in the river for the past seven years and has seen a croc upstream of the barrage only once. It was during the colder months and the saltie had its snout out of the water. During the central Queensland winter, he says, crocodiles aren't breeding, aren't territorial and aren't hungry. He wasn't worried at all. 'It was doing its thing, and I was doing mine,' Mackenzie says. 'It was quite a majestic encounter'. Other local water users aren't so enamoured of sharing the water with these toothy reptiles. Steve Diehm grew up five minutes from the boat ramp above the barrage on the banks of the Fitzroy and has spent his whole life in Rockhampton. An avid waterskier, Diehm had a boat before he had a car. The Fifo oil and gas worker met his wife and raised his three children waterskiing. But, over recent years, Diehm began being gnawed by a sense of unease familiar to many north of the tropic of capricorn. Since they were protected in the 1970s after being hunted to near annihilation, saltwater crocodiles – which despite their name also inhabit freshwater environments – have been steadily returning to their former range, reclaiming waterways that people swam for decades. Diehm had always been aware he was in croc habitat but began to feel less and less safe. Then, when he saw a picture of that 4.5 metre saltie captured in 2023, a 'horrible feeling' wrenched his stomach. He had skied that 'exact bank' for 15 years. Diehm thought about his children. The 46-year-old was devastated when he made the decision that it was no longer safe for his family to be on the Fitzroy. Looking out across the river gives Diehm a pang of remorse. It is perfectly smooth, basking in sunshine, a 'skier's dream' – and there is not a soul on the water. 'This should be like the Murray Darling,' he says. 'There should be houseboats workin' on here. There should be, you know, park a houseboat, swim off it, ski off it. 'All this, all the way up here, there's this ability for tourism, for so much good, old-fashioned, outdoor fun.' Diehm believes the Olympics would be great for Rockhampton but, without a change to crocodile management, he reckons athletes will be 'running the gauntlet'. The University of Queensland's crocodile expert, Prof Craig Franklin, runs the world's largest and longest active crocodile tracking program. The Fitzroy Olympics plan 'worries' him 'on a number of levels'. 'No. I don't believe it's safe,' he says. 'I think it's foolish.' Franklin fears the Olympic event sends the message that it is 'OK to go swimming' in places like the Fitzroy. But crocodiles travel vast distances over short periods, crossing barriers and moving overland for several kilometres. 'Rowing in a place where it's the natural habitat of the world's largest species of crocodilian and, arguably, the most dangerous?' he says. 'Why would you do that?' For Mackenzie, though, there is no other river like it. Still flush from his early morning canoe as he sips a coffee at his regular cafe near the river, the retired financial planner reflects that many people worry about all the wrong things. In the year to early August, 178 people died on Queensland roads. That morning, Mackenzie watched the Fitzroy's surface ripple with the movements of big catfish, barramundi and bum-breathing turtles. So, yes, he knows there are risks when he gets on to the water, but they are ones Mackenzie gladly accepts. One of the beauties of this river, he says, is that it's alive.
Times
16 hours ago
- Times
This has to be Australia's most breathtaking, magical landscape
The world's best fake jungle swimming pool lies in the grounds of the five-star Silky Oaks Lodge hotel in Mossman, Far North Queensland. Spangled with the sunlight that's dripped through the forest ceiling, its blue waters are fringed with river-rounded boulders and dense yet carefully pruned foliage. It's so perfect that it even fools the Torresian crows — and not much fools Torresian crows. And yet I wonder why the owners bothered, because just 50 yards from this film set is the Mossman River: a natural waterpark in a tropical rainforest, with swimmable waterfalls, still wallows and shaded white sand beaches. It's as beautiful as a fever dream, as cool as champagne and, since the crocodiles don't come up this far, as benign as a boatload of nuns. The Daintree Rainforest is ten million years older than the Amazon and the most ancient on the planet. It rises on Australia's Mount Carbine Tablelands, where the bull kauri conifers and red cedar trees scrape the water from the clouds as they bump across the top of the Atherton Tablelands. There's a little-used footpath from Silky Oaks to a place called Fig Tree Rapids. The first stretch is the perfect location for those TV explorers who make hardcore survival shows — authentically wild, but just moments from the restaurant, spa and that fake jungle pool — but the deeper it goes into the forest, the trickier it gets, with trees brought down by cyclones blocking a trail that frequently vanishes, or divides into identical branches, like they do in fairytales. I hesitate at the first bend in the path. I should be used to the forest by now — I've walked alone in jungles from the Darien to the DRC — but, deep down, I'm still scared of the woods. I think we all are. • Read our full guide to Australia Some — men, mostly — cut walking sticks when they enter woodlands in a symbolic act of authority over the trees. Others talk in whispers so as not to waken what lurks within. In Finland I was told to wear my jacket inside out so as not to vanish in the metsanpeitto, or forest fog. In Papua New Guinea I was warned not to call my guide by his real name so the tree ghosts wouldn't kill him, and in the Carpathians there's a more prosaic fear: bears. Our species came down from the trees about four million years ago. As Africa split along the Great Rift Valley, new mountain ranges changed rainfall patterns. The tropical forests in which our ancestors evolved were replaced by grasslands better suited to the new aridity, and we had to adapt. We've now been out of the woods so long that the familiarity of home has become fear of the unknown, and as I blunder through the world's oldest rainforest, I wonder if those whose ancestors once lived here feel the same trepidation. I can also see a situation involving a search party and the overuse of the phrase 'bloody Pom', so I waymark every junction like Hansel without Gretel, in the hope I will find my way back. If not, the old rainforest distress signal of a rock bashed repeatedly against the buttress roots of a yellow carabeen tree can be heard for miles. The vibrations are also a good way of informing snakes of your presence. I see no snakes — Tourism Australia is very keen that I mention that — but Boyd's forest dragons (imagine an 8in T. rex) are everywhere, and the huge webs of the harmless giant orb weaver spiders are strung between the pungent dead horse trees and the light-sapping red pendas. I watch a paradise kingfisher, with his fancy tail; electric-blue Ulysses butterflies; and I spot a sugar glider — basically a flying possum — soaring between the trees. Feral pigs, heard but not seen, flee in panic; orange-footed scrubfowl dart clucking through the undergrowth and as I round a bend I spot a golden bowerbird: a brilliant impressionist who spends his adult life building show homes to attract a mate. This one's got a bit of the Daffy Duck about him. He doesn't spot me because he's demolishing a bower with a fury that can only be for one of two reasons. Either he's evicting a rival from his manor, or he's a bachelor frustrated by the inadequacy of his interior design skills to attract a wife. I suspect the latter. Shouldn't have gone with the Farrow & Ball, mate. That's so Y2K. Fig Tree Rapids is the halfway point on the Mossman's sprint to the sea, the water spouting in white torrents through the gaps in a wall of giant boulders worn smooth over eons. Below the falls, it collects in still, tannin-rich pools, where rainbowfish flash in the sunlight and archerfish lurk in the shade, squirting jets of water with deadly accuracy to down reckless damselflies. I've been told I might see the sparrow-sized giant petaltail — the biggest dragonfly in the world and a species that's been here as long as the forest — so I find a still pool in which to lie in wait. None shows, but as my blood cools the primal anxiety is replaced by wonder. Up to my left, the Tableland is covered in a tablecloth of cloud. Billions of drops from millions of leaves trickle earthwards, irrigating 3,000 plant species — of which 920 are trees — as it percolates through soil that smells of pepper and vanilla. It gathers in the rivulets and creeks that feed the tributaries that wind into the river like braids on a rope falling 3,440ft in a 15-mile journey to the Coral Sea, where it evaporates to form the clouds that make the tablecloth. Driven by gravity and fuelled by the sun, it's a machine so perfect that it blows my mind. • 16 of the best Australian tours The forest it feeds is a beautiful miracle. It nurtures and heals, repairs and recycles and, at 180 million years old, is the closest we've got to the life eternal. Every living thing in this wonderland has, in previous lives, been other things. Every second of every minute here is spent in a state of wonder, and when I report back to the hotel four hours later than expected the receptionist raises an eyebrow. Bloody Pom. The next day I meet with the forest guides Levi Williams and Chase Walker. They're from the Kuku Yalanji community, which has lived here since long before in the woods were named after an East Anglian geologist called Daintree and the river after a gold mining politician called Mosman from New South Wales. For the Kuku Yalanji, the forest is the Kaba Kada — or rainy place — and the river is Manjal Dimbi, named after the benign mountain spirit that keeps evil at bay from the valley. Does that mean the forest is safe? 'Let me put it this way,' Williams says. He points at a large-leafed growth not dissimilar to giant hogweed. 'Have you seen this plant before?' I have, I tell him, on my hike to Fig Tree Rapids. Can we eat it? 'No. This is the most dangerous plant in the world,' Williams says. 'We call it gympie gympie, the stinging tree or the suicide plant. It can kill a horse.' He turns the leaf with his stick. 'See those fine hairs? They're silica-tipped. They embed themselves in the skin and deliver a neurotoxin. We had a foreigner go hiking alone here. She saw these big, soft leaves and picked a bunch to use as toilet paper. That was 15 years ago. She's still taking the painkillers.' A flashback of me the day before, skipping between the gympie-gympies and the dead horse trees like Goldilocks, brings on a cold sweat, but Williams has moved on. 'The second most dangerous species in the forest is the cassowary,' he says. 'Australia's second largest bird: 6ft tall, with a 5in claw that can split you open. It's my spirit animal, but if I see one, I run. As for bilngkumu — or saltwater crocodile — they don't come this far upstream, but if we see one downriver, or the kurrujuwa bird warns us, and we need to cross, we splash the water to let him know we want to come in.' Does that work? Williams shrugs. 'It has mixed results.' Walker agrees that Far North Queensland has the odd hazard. 'But our mob has been living here for tens of thousands of years,' she says. 'The forest was our supermarket. The men would fetch the meat, the women the fruit and veg, the teenage boys the fish, and the girls would find the seeds and nuts. But the old people had the most important job. They looked after the kids, taking them on walks through the forest and teaching them what was good and bad. So we grew up with the right knowledge, and that knowledge is preserved in the community.' So could Walker live in the woods? 'I reckon I'd be all right,' she says. 'What about you?' I'd give myself seven days, Haslam travelled as a guest of Tourism Australia ( A 14-night luxury tour focusing on the flora and fauna of Northern Queensland, with two nights at Silky Oaks Lodge and three nights at Orpheus Island, costs from £10,995pp, including flights to Brisbane and transfers to Townsville (
Times
20 hours ago
- Times
Scottish Thistle Awards: a sneak peek at this year's shortlist
Want to know the best places to stay, the must-visit attractions and top sporting events? Frankly, who has time to do the research? Well, luckily, the Scottish Thistle Awards judges do — they've found the hoteliers with heart, the restaurants cooking up a storm and the events worth putting your kilt on for. Better still, they've given us a sneak peek at the finalists, exclusively revealed below. Our advice? Book now, while you still can. Say what you like about his politics, Donald Trump sure knows how to glam up his hotels — not for nothing Trump Turnberry scooped last year's Best Luxury Experience, and is down to the last four in 2025. Perched high above the rugged South Ayrshire coast, it was Britain's first purpose-built golf resort, dating from 1906. You're unlikely to forget the year: the signature restaurant is named 1906 and dinner service begins every night at 19.06. Besides eating lobster thermidor while looking out over the golf course to the sea, or taking tea under sparkling chandeliers in the Grand Tea Lounge, guests can also detoxify in the five-star spa, which has floor-to-ceiling views over to Arran and Ailsa Craig, plus a heated infinity pool, steam room, sensory showers and ice fountain. Much has been made of Trump's bid for the Open return to Turnberry — the Ailsa course hosted the event here in 1977, 1986, 1994 and 2009 — but for now hotel guests (and visitors) can play a round at this bucket-list course for an eye-watering green fee roughly between £500-£1,000. Or get stuck into activities including clay shooting, quad biking, or horse riding at Turnberry's own equestrian B&B doubles from £299, A finalist in last year's Scottish Thistle Awards, Knockinaam Lodge is a five-star luxury boutique hotel in a former shooting lodge where Churchill and Eisenhower met in secret to plan the D-Day landings. Just round the coast from Portpatrick on the wild, western edge of the Rhinns of Galloway, the hotel has dreamy views over the Irish Sea — but the food is an even bigger draw, with three AA Rosettes over the restaurant door. The head chef Tony Pierce and his team take pride in their daily-changing tasting menus, using ingredients from their own kitchen garden. Since last May, the hotel has teamed up with local businesses to offer bespoke packages for guests, including falconry experiences, gourmet weekends and in-room massages, which have been going down a storm. • Knockinaam: heaven's door The best room is the Churchill Suite, where the prime minister stayed for that famous meeting in 1944, featuring a seating area around the original fireplace and views over the garden and a private cove below. Nine other rooms are available; some with a cosy window seat or Victorian rolltop bathtub. Book one for your own secret rendezvous or the entire Victorian lodge can be hired for exclusive use. All suites come with luxury handmade toiletries by Apothecally, an hour away in Gatehouse of Dinner and B&B doubles from £390, 'Made in Scotland, made to last' goes the motto for this luxury cashmere and merino wool brand, weaver of the world's finest fibres since 1797. Buy its knitwear at its shops in Edinburgh, St Andrews and Mayfair — or see how it's all done at its visitors centres in Hawick and Elgin, the latter housed in Johnstons' original mill on the banks of the River Lossie. • How to get the best out of a weekend in Elgin Guided tours teach visitors about everything from the 30 processes involved in crafting a single scarf to the history of the company's famous tweeds. Johnstons' Elgin mill is the only 'vertical' weaving mill in Scotland — where raw fibres are treated, spun then dyed and woven all in the same building. Tours can be tied in with a personal shopping experience followed by lunch or afternoon tea in the Weavers coffee One-hour tours £15, Nicknamed the Harrods of the north, The House of Bruar is to the Highlands what Jenners used to be to Edinburgh (albeit halfway up the A9 near Blair Atholl, not slap bang on Princes Street). It calls itself Scotland's premier independent country living retailer — and it's hard to argue with somewhere selling everything from Harris Tweed dog blankets and top-brand fishing rods to merino wool socks and Barbour jackets. The adjoining food hall and restaurant have similarly high standards (our recommendation, the lobster, fish and chip shop). A bonnie location near the Falls of Bruar helps: where else can you stock up on copper-plated garden tools, antique games tables and smoked salmon terrine, then walk to the falls, let the children loose on the play park, and take off up or down the A9 — probably off on your hols?Details • Walk of the week: The Falls of Bruar, Perthshire The opening stage at last year's men's Tour of Britain cycling race kicked off in Kelso, looping through the Borders via Coldstream, Melrose and St Boswells. Free to spectators, the event featured Borders boys Callum Thornley from Peebles and Oscar Onley from Kelso, with this leg won by the Frenchman Paul Magnier. The bad news for anyone wanting to copy the route is that it's a whopping 113-mile rollercoaster — you would need to borrow Chris Hoy's thighs if you wanted to do it in a day. • A cycling tour de Borders fuelled by fine French-inspired cuisine The good news is that with a fair wind (and energy gels) most could manage the 56-mile Four Abbeys loop, which hits Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh and Dryburgh and includes some key climbs from the race — minus that pro peloton breathing down your neck. It's by no means a cakewalk (you're looking at six to eight hours in the saddle), but you'll get epic views, ancient abbeys and maybe a slice of cake at Sir Walter Scott's old home, Abbotsford Visit for information on the Four Abbeys Loop Wondering about the name? It comes from the Gaelic word for disembowelling a deer. Strange name for a mountain-biking event then? Not if you look at the stats: 69 miles on gravel, one vertical mile of ascent — the 1,500 competitors at last year's event knew exactly why the organisers chose the name. Taking place each May, the Gatehouse of Fleet event began in 2023, the first time the UK had hosted a top-level international gravel race. There's live music, food and drink, and riders aged 16 to 80 have competed from as far afield as Mauritius, New Zealand and Colombia. It's a perfect showcase for Scottish cycling, with its rolling hills, hidden lochs and vast network of gravel tracks. Got what it takes to join them? Registration is open now for the 2026 event. If you fancy giving it a go but don't know where to start then visit Wheels of Fleet ( a fantastically friendly bike shop near the Mill in Gatehouse that rents out gravel bikes from £30 a day and ebikes from £45 a day, including helmets and route maps for loops of 5-35 If you were in Holyrood Park last July and saw a bunch of wiry runners hurtling about with maps and compasses, you were probably witnessing the World Orienteering Championships. The six-day speed navigation event drew amateurs and elite athletes from across the orienteering world, with races also taking place in Leith, Wester Hailes, Heriot-Watt University campus, the old town and even the University of Edinburgh's King's Buildings. The competition will be in Genoa in July 2026 — and if that sounds tempting, there are several clubs in Edinburgh who'll help you get into the sport, including Edinburgh Southern ( and Interlopers ( Beginners outside Edinburgh can visit Scottish Orienteering ( to track down a club nearer to Delivered by VisitScotland, in association with headline sponsors Abbey: The Destination Experts, the Scottish Thistle Awards celebrate the very best of the tourism and events industry. The national final takes place in Glasgow on November 20, 2025;
