The Beauty of Scotland

 ...Scotland is a country full of beauty, of contrasting land- and- seascapes, from the windswept Mull of Galloway in the South-West, the soft beauty of the Borders Country and the majestic River Tweed in the South -East, up through the rolling hills of the Southern Uplands, across the flat, low-lying Central Belt with Glasgow to Edinburgh as the axis, up and over the grandeur of the ancient Grampian Mountains, over the Great Glen with its tales of monsters, and the North West Highlands full of Munros, to the flat seascapes from Cape Wrath in the West to Dunnet Head, Scotlands most northerly mainland point (not John o’ Groats, as many people believe) in the East.. To the West of the mainland lie the beautiful Islands of the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and to the North-East, the Orkneys and Shetlands, each with its own character and each with its own significant contribution to the Beauty of Scotland.

  There's a lot to cover, and the wee bittie you may have an interest in could be a while in coming. So if you want to know about any particular part of Scotland, and any specific information on that part - tell us. We've put in a form for this at the foot of the page

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 The aim of this section is, following the same format we use throughout the site, not to present a boring A-Z of Scottish beauty spots but rather to list various – and varied – places both pleasing to the eye, and of interest.

In some cases, the beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, or rather, Wullie or Frank’s idea of beauty! It could be yours...

  Many of the places featured in the Beauty of Scotland have been/ will be visited by our team in the course of our travels across Scotland. We'll be adding regularly to the panoply of beauty on the site and will cover each place we list in some depth, either providing the information on the site or linking you to other relevant sites…or both!

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Corrieshalloch Gorge

 This spectacular mile-long gorge, twelve miles south-east of Ullapool, is one of the finest examples in Britain of a box canyon. Meltwaters created Corrieshalloch Gorge shortly before glaciers left the area. It’s 200ft. deep with near vertical walls and in places it’s very narrow, only 11yds. across at the lip. The River Droma flows through the gorge in a series of waterfalls, the largest of which is the 150-foot Falls of Measach. The site belongs to the National Trust for Scotland, and the unmanned entry has an honesty box.

  (There's a suspension bridge above the Falls of Measach, and an observation platform further down on the north side; I can tell you from personal experience - it's very impressive; I took the photograph from the bridge - Wullie) , and it does not do the site justice.

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 We don’t just want to bring you a ‘Tourist-Board’ listing of places, we’d rather bring you unusual and less well-known places (as well as the better known places) that are also beautiful, if only in their own way. For instance, most people have heard of Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, but how many people have heard of Hailes Castle and Tantallon Castle in East Lothian, Elcho Castle in Perthshire, Gunn Castle in Caithness, Kilmaurs Castle in Ayrshire, Rothesay Castle on the Isle of Bute, Wemyss Castle in Fife - or any of the many other castles, in various states of repair and historical significance - around our lovely land.

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We'll try to give you a good, ongoing cross-section of the Beauty of Scotland. You'll see braw bits of the coastline, the rugged cliffs and picturesque harbours; the golden beaches and sweeping bays. We'll show the mountains, the valleys, the hills and glens, the lochs and rivers, the mainland and the islands. And in each case, there will be a wee bit of information about the locality, the people, history, flora and fauna, relevant to that subject.

Some of Scotland's Beauty is ancient; some very new. Some turns up in unexpected places...  these pictures were taken in West Lothian, long known as a shale mining area, where the massive red "Bings"- huge piles of the pit debris- formed much of the landscape, and the land above and around the mining areas was blighted by the industrial despoilation...

 ...There is a programme of rehabilitation and regeneration; the autumn pathway was, not so long ago, a mining pit railway spur, and the little pond - now a nature reserve - was an acrid, barren waste.

It's a lovely little walk - but you need to know it's there! 

  We'll also be here to help YOU, if there's a bit of Scotland you want to know more about. E-mail us - info@finditinscotland.com - to tell us what you want; we'll look into all serious enquiries and, with your permission, may include your personal details (to the level you allow). Tell us why you want to know about this - does it have a family connection? is there another reason? We'll let our readers know.

  This could in turn lead to your getting contacts from other Scots, anywhere in the world, who have an interest in the same areas. And, you can use the Blog section in Scot-talk to ask for help here, also.

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