Travel

It is home to some of Scotland’s most majestic landscapes, with its jagged mountains and sparkling lochs attracting tourists from home and further afield.

CILT promotes excellence in professionalism, driving a transport and logistics ­sector that is fit for the 21st century. However, sometimes we have to take our hats off to the volunteers who ­lobby for the retention and development of our transport infrastructure – and the 25th anniversary of the ­foundation of the Friends of the Far North Line has allowed us to take stock of the group’s achievements, recorded in a recent commemorative booklet.

The new National Transport Strategy (NTS) for Scotland published earlier this month was greeted as a disappointment and a wasted opportunity by organisations with particular ­concerns about the all-encompassing climate emergency.

Scotland’s mountain-going community is hugely diverse – on any given weekend, on any of the country’s Munros, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds, you might find climbers and hikers, skiers and snowboarders, artists and photographers, mountain bikers and paragliders, twitchers and botanists. Month after month, year after year, these people are drawn back to the same remote, high places, yet they all look at them through very different eyes: the climber typically seeks the most challenging route to the top of a mountain while the skier looks for the most exciting route to the bottom; the paraglider tries to predict where the best thermals will be, while the photographer aims to reach the best possible viewpoint in the best possible light conditions. And yeah, the twitchers never seem to be satisfied until they’ve managed to spy at least one ptarmigan.

He’s still just 15 years old, but Scottish surfer Ben Larg is already making a name for himself in giant waves.

Glide through the fairy-tale scenery of Bavaria, Austria and Czech in the luxurious AmaMagna floating hotel