Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wild Scotland
Visitors revel in the solitude and dramatic scenery encompassing so much of rural Scot-
land. Soaring peaks with veins of snow trickling down their summits, steely blue lochs,
deep inlets, forgotten beaches and surging peninsulas are a taste of the astonishing natural
diversity. The best wildlife in Britain - from the emblematic osprey to the red deer, its bel-
low reverberating among large stands of native forest - is found throughout the wild places
of Scotland. Large chunks of land moored just offshore, or miles out into the raging north-
ern Atlantic Ocean, are havens for species hunted to extinction centuries ago in habitats
further south. Cetaceans patrol the seas, and the remote archipelagos of the northeast are
havens for seabird breeding colonies of extraordinary magnitude.
The Land
Scotland's mainland divides neatly into thirds. The Southern Uplands, ranges of grassy
rounded hills divided by wide valleys and bounded by fertile coastal plains, form the south-
ern border to the central Lowlands. The geological divide - the Southern Uplands Fault -
runs in a line from Girvan (Ayrshire) to Dunbar (East Lothian).
The central Lowlands lie in a broad band
stretching from Glasgow and Ayr in the west to
Edinburgh and Dundee in the east. This area is
underlaid by sedimentary rocks, including the
beds of coal and oil shale that fuelled Scotland's
Industrial Revolution. Though it's only a fifth of
the nation by land area, most of the country's industry, its two largest cities and 80% of the
population are concentrated here.
Another great geological divide - the Highland Boundary Fault - runs from Helensburgh
in the west to Stonehaven on the east coast, and marks the southern edge of the Scottish
Highlands. These hills - most of their summits reach to around the 900m to 1000m mark -
were deeply scoured by glaciers during the last Ice Age, creating a series of deep, U-shaped
valleys: the long, narrow sea lochs that today are such a feature of Highland scenery. The
Highlands form 60% of the Scottish mainland, and are cut in two by the Great Glen, a rift
valley running southwest to northeast.
Scotland accounts for one-third of the British main-
land's surface area, but it has a massive 80% of Bri-
tain's coastline and only 10% of its population.
