Читать книгу Walking Highland Perthshire онлайн

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At the eastern side of the Highlands, Perthshire has slightly more sunshine and a bit less rain. So its valleys can be pleasingly bog-free. Green trackways from Blair Atholl, and made paths around Pitlochry or the Black Wood of Rannoch, offer low-level walking as good as any in the Highlands.

And on stormy mornings, it’s time to take advantage of Perthshire’s other promotional slogan: this is ‘Big Tree Country’. The Douglas fir at Dunkeld’s Hermitage could be Britain’s tallest tree, and is named after Mr Douglas from Scone, in Perthshire – though it takes its Latin name (Pseudotsugam menziesii) from Mr Archibald Menzies of Weem, also in Perthshire.

The Birnam Oak could have been there as a young twig when Shakespeare wrote of Birnam Wood’s coming to Dunsinane to conquer Macbeth. Who hasn’t heard of the Birks of Aberfeldy? And the yew at Fortingall is the oldest living being in Europe: according to legend, Pontius Pilate played in its shade as a child. (This is unlikely, as his mother would have worried about the poisonous berries; and anyway, Pontius Pilate wasn’t Scottish.)