GeezerTreks Takeaways:
- Start early. This is a full-day excursion, especially if you begin in Portobello as we did.
- Reserve the sauna. Hot Tottie sessions should be booked in advance.
- Wear layers. Conditions changed from cold waterfront wind to a hot sauna and frigid loch plunge. Be prepared for rapidly changing conditions, including wind, sun, clouds and rain.
- Wear shoes with decent traction. The Craig an Tuirc hike is short, but the path is wet and rocky in places.
- Feed the coos only approved food. You’ll need pounds in cash to buy the potatoes and carrots available onsite.
- You don’t need a tour. With a car, navigation and a sauna reservation, the route is straightforward to reproduce.
Honey, Baxter, and Hamish Dub want your potatoes and carrots.
Well, to be accurate, not “your” potatoes and carrots. They want the ones you can buy from the store across the parking lot at Trossachs Woollen Mill. If you offer them anything else, they might eat it, and they might “get poorly.” Or so warns the sign on a fence holding in the trio of “hairy coos.”
Don’t worry, they’re not really all that hemmed in. In fact, they’ve got acres of verdant ranchland to wander, but it’s just that right here, right up against the fence rail, they’ve got tourists eager to feed them.
If you’ve been yearning to feed or pet a hairy coo, the Scottish name for long-haired Highland cattle, you can do so in the countryside about an hour outside Edinburgh. Just be prepared to be slimed when a gooey tongue tugs the snack out of your hand.
The hairy coos at Trossachs Woollen Mill are just one attraction in the loch-and-mountain country within an easy drive of Edinburgh. Many travelers venture to Scotland’s historical and cultural capital – and perhaps board a tour bus for the obligatory excursion to Loch Ness – but miss the stunning landscapes and historic sites in and around Trossachs National Park.
Kris and I didn’t want to miss it. We were fortunate to enjoy the trip with a local—in this case, our niece, Zoe—who lives in Edinburgh with her English husband and two border collies, Zorro and Mars.
Zoe’s local knowledge improved the day, but none of the stops required an insider or an organized tour. Anyone with a car, a navigation app and an advance sauna reservation can follow essentially the same route.
Breakfast by the Sea
First, we stopped for breakfast in Portobello Beach, a charming seaside neighborhood east of Edinburgh that Zoe told us has become a very desirable place to live. Once a Victorian resort town, its broad beachfront promenade is lined with cafés, beer gardens and traditional Scottish pubs.
Our breakfast along the waterfront was a bit brisk, with windswept waves sending sea spray up onto the wooden boardwalk where we sat. I had haggis and eggs on a roll with a stiff shot of espresso, and wished the entire time I hadn’t left my parka in the car.
Next we headed west on the M9, passing Stirling Castle, a strategically vital fortress that commanded one of the principal routes into northern Scotland. A few miles away lies Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce defeated the army of England’s Edward II in 1314. The victory secured Robert Bruce’s position as Scotland’s king and became a defining moment in the long struggle for Scottish independence. The battle appears briefly at the very end of the film Braveheart.
Hairy Coos and Highland Roads
We wound ever higher above the verdant meadows west of Edinburgh, passing meandering streams and solitary trees, up into low, wooded ridges. Soon we arrived at Trossachs Woollen Mill, where we had a highly entertaining—and very tactile—encounter with hairy coos, even though the mill store itself was rather touristy.
To the north the landscape rose into grazing lands speckled with sheep, goats and cattle. Stately stone country houses sat at the high end of most meadows, just on the edge of forested slopes. We traced our route along a cascading stream, the Garbh Uisge, Gaelic for “Rough Water,” passing the Falls of Leny on the way to our trailhead for the day’s hike.
Rob Roy and a Hike Above Loch Voil
Soon we came to Balquhidder Kirkyard, a church and cemetery at the base of a hill above Loch Voil. The graveyard is the final resting place of Rob Roy MacGregor, the cattleman, outlaw and folk hero later romanticized in fiction and film. He’s buried just beyond Balquhidder Old Church along with his wife and sons. Carved into the gravestone behind three horizontal slabs is the phrase, “MacGregor Despite Them,” a reference to the government banning the use of the clan name.
A sign near the churchyard describes four local walks, ranging from a short climb above Balquhidder to longer routes through Kirkton Glen and into the surrounding hills. Parking is available beside the churchyard.
We were short on time, so we chose a short, 1.6-mile round-trip trail leading up a gentle incline above the cemetery before entering a shadowy stand of dark green woods. Ordinary walking shoes were sufficient. We followed the even but stone-littered pathway past tall pines to the rocky outcrop of Craig an Tuirc, Rock of the Boar, the ancient rallying place of Clan Labhran (McLaren Clan). Right before the top, be sure to close a small gate behind you to keep the local sheep secure.
After about 30 minutes, we reached the summit, which rewarded us with a sweeping view of the Loch Voil valley. Green pastureland unfolded below us, rolling up to round, hulking peaks laden with dark pine forest. Above the trees, broken clouds cast blue shadows across the mountainsides. Stone walls streaked their way up and across wide, empty swaths of brown and purple heather. Scotland, how bonnie thou art!
Sweating—and Swimming—at Loch Lomond
Zoe urged us down from the hillside; we had an appointment in the resort town of Luss some 45 miles distant. On the way there we sped along the shores of Loch Lomond, eventually parking our car just inside the village, and walking past another church and graveyard down to the shores of the massive loch. There we found “Hot Tottie,” a squat, tubular lakeside sauna, arriving just minutes before our appointed time.
Hot Tottie offers a 55-minute sauna session in a round, wooden chamber with a breathtaking view of the loch and Ben Lomond, one of Scotland’s best-known Munros, the name given to mountains at least 3,000 feet high. Sessions are capped at 10 people and must be booked in advance. Shared sessions go for £12 (about $15 as of this writing) on weekdays and £15 (roughly $20) on weekends. Arrive at least 10 minutes early to allow time to change. Arriving even earlier may improve your chances of getting a seat beside the panoramic window. Hot Tottie provides wooden lockers where you can leave your things, but there’s really no place to change other than your car. Zoe provided us with changing robes under which we slipped out of our street clothes and into swimsuits. Bring your own towel.
We walked up a short stairway to the toasty chamber. Another pair of visitors had gotten there first, so they snagged the window seats, but it didn’t diminish our enjoyment of the view one bit. I found the sauna a relaxing antidote to the brisk, bracing climate we’d encountered at the top of the Craig an Tuirc hike and along the windy shoreline of the various lochs we’d visited.
The sauna was hotter than others I have used, but the Hot Tottie staff had an answer for that: They suggested stepping outside every 15 minutes or so and heading down to a small bathing area in the loch for a quick cool-down. I found I could endure only a quick dip in the frigid waters, but it was a nice break from the sweltering chamber. It might help to have water shoes for the short walk down to the loch, but we managed it in bare feet.
After sweating away various aches and pains from hiking and travel, we returned along the south shore of Loch Lomond, skirting the vast Trossachs mountain range, and back to Edinburgh. For dinner we relished fish and chips from the Fishmarket, a local favorite in Newhaven Harbour, before returning to Zoe’s home in nearby Leith.
It was an ambitious but deeply satisfying 191-mile loop. Best of all, it was not an excursion available only to travelers with local connections. Start early, reserve the sauna and rent a car, and you can easily build your own version of this countryside drive.
Don’t Skip Central Edinburgh
The next day, Kris and I explored Edinburgh’s traditional sights: photos from the castle’s esplanade, a stroll down the Royal Mile and its narrow closes, and a quick climb up Calton Hill for commanding views of central Edinburgh and Arthur’s Seat. We had lunch at the Abbotsford, a lovely, classic Rose Street pub centered around an ornate, island-style wooden bar.
Central Edinburgh is spectacular and should not be missed. But the Royal Mile was crowded with umbrella-following tour groups, selfie-takers, and shops selling novelty kilts, Celtic jewelry and miniature whisky bottles.
When we passed by a shop hawking Highland-cow plush toys, we longed for the day before—when we had rubbed the coarse heads of actual coos and gazed across windswept lochs, lonely heather-covered hills and miles of green pastureland, all within a day’s drive of Edinburgh.
