Bolstered by the breathtaking views, the clean, crisp mountain air, and the heady scent of heather, I add a rock to the cairn. Then, I gaze over towards Ben Nevis in the distance – Loch Leven shimmering like a silver spoon below – and feel a surge of pride, like I've conquered the world.
Since turning 50, I have been able to see the appeal of walking holidays. There's something about the magnificent scenery of the Scottish Highlands – the lush pine forests, heather-strewn moors, vertiginous mountain passes – that makes you want to pull on your hiking boots and scale everything to pop a rock on it. It must be the Gaelic in me. Bagging a Munro (a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet) has now been on my bucket list for, well, the six hours for which I have been in Scotland.
Growing up, I spent summers visiting my Scottish grandparents in Dumbarton who would take my cousins, my brother and I off on brilliant adventures through the Trossachs and up to the Highlands. We'd spend the days hiking up the Rest and Be Thankful or the Camel's Hump, swimming in the icy waters of Loch Lomond, and sailing along the Firth of Clyde on the Waverley, a beautiful old paddle steamer which is still in service today after 75 years. It was a magical time.
THE HIGHLANDS WITH KIRSTY WARK
Of course, we all grew up and the Famous Five-style holidays lost their appeal. When my grandparents passed away in the Nineties, I didn't return to Scotland for more than a decade, and even then it was only on a short city break to Glasgow. I had forgotten the real natural beauty of my dad's homeland.
I took Scotland's incredible landscape for granted as a nipper – I was far more interested in Nana's battered tin of Tunnock's Teacakes. Returning as an adult, I was simply blown away by the scenery. Snow-dusted mountains, deep baize-green glens, navy lochs with single stone towers perched ominously on the banks, it really is one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
As a nod to my nature-loving childhood, I kept my eyes peeled for native wildlife; pine martens, red squirrels, stags are all found in Glen Coe's hills. I'd only been in Scotland for a matter of hours before I witnessed my first kilt in the wild. Sadly, it was not hiking up a mountain like a modern day Braveheart, but coming out of the Co-op in Kinlochleven. Naturally, I was still delighted.
As it was my first proper walking holiday, I went straight to God-tier and headed to Glen Coe in the Highlands, one of Britain's best-known walking areas. Shrouded in legend and history –not least the MacDonald clan massacre of 1692– Glen Coe is a valley on the western flanks of the Scottish Highlands, close to Fort William. I stayed at Alltshellach, an old walking lodge in Kinlochleven which sits on the banks of Loch Leven.
A SEVEN-NIGHT CRUISE AROUND THE HIGHLANDS
A natural show off, I decide my first hike should be scaling the dizzying heights of Beinn na Caillich, which at 2500ft (765m) is not quite a Munro, but a Corbett, which feels more appropriate for my first mountain. It's the start of summer and the day is blessed with Saltire blue skies and a clement breeze, the perfect walking weather for a romp up a mountain.
On my way down, I walked along part of the West Highland Way, the long-distance path which winds for nearly a hundred miles from the outer reaches of Glasgow through the Trossachs National Park, through Glen Coe and towards Fort William.
There are numerous hikes to choose from in the Glen Coe area. And you don't need to show off and conquer a mountain like me. In fact, I find the Glencoe Lochan Trail, a beautiful walk through a pine forest to a tiny lochan, is just as satisfying the following morning.
After a blissful three days of walking, I decided to treat myself and booked a bunk on the Highland Caledonian Sleeper for the journey back south. Passing through a station, I wave at a young lad and get a flashback to the Eighties, when my rabble of cousins and I would watch the Jacobite puff past us on its way to Fort William. It was decades before the steam engine would find fame as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films, but I can still smell the deliciously oily steam as it chuffed through the hills.
While the modern engine of the Caledonian is not quite like riding the rails on the Jacobite, it does pass through some of the same incredible scenery. Exhausted, I relax in the dining car with a nip of whisky and a haggis dinner and revel in the Highlands as they slip past, vowing not to leave it so long before I return...
Good Housekeeping has a selection of exclusive holidays in the Highlands, including a six-night cruise around the area and its islands on a boutique ship, a four-day adventure with a ride on the Jacobite train and the chance to meet TV's Kirsty Wark, and a seven-night cruise on Lord of the Glens, which will take you around Loch Ness, Loch Lochy, Oban and more.
