Bonding with Scotland: Castles and wildlands on a 007-style Aston Martin tour of the Scottish Highlands

Perfect package: exploring the wild beauty of Scotland in an Aston Martin Vanquish
Perfect package: exploring the wild beauty of Scotland in an Aston Martin Vanquish Credit: Danielle Booth

It is late autumn and a lonely Highland glen is brooding beneath a lowering sky. The air is still, as if nature is holding its breath before winter storms sweep in from the Atlantic and unleash their fury on stark, gnarled hills. On a narrow ribbon of road twisting by a shallow river, an Aston Martin sports car growls to a halt.

The driver emerges, and stands gazing at the ruins of an old shooting lodge he once knew. It was called Skyfall. James Bond is back.

Actually, it’s not 007, it’s just me on a road trip through the Highlands and islands of Scotland that has brought me to Glen Etive, the scene of Judi Dench’s demise as M in a climactic shootout.

An Aston Martin Vanquish heading through Glen Docherty in the Wester Ross Highland region, with Loch Maree in the distance
An Aston Martin Vanquish heading through Glen Docherty in the Wester Ross Highland region, with Loch Maree in the distance

The film played smoke and mirrors with locations, but this setting is real. Glen Etive with its solitary dead-end road is as remote and wild as it gets, enclosed by hills of bracken and heather that rarely feel the tread of boots. It is a place that grips the soul.

Happily, the five-day trip in a fleet of the latest Aston Martins takes us to more hospitable abodes in the castles and stately homes of aristocrats and billionaires frequented by the likes of Queen Victoria, Dr Samuel Johnson, and Elton John.

The idea of this “Scottish Legends” tour is to enjoy the best West Highland scenery and lodging in the finest British sports cars, with the company of venerable Scottish aristocrats for good measure.

We get off to a promising start at Dalmeny House near Edinburgh, a splendid 19th-century Tudor Gothic Revival mansion that is home to the 7th Earl of Rosebery and a treasure trove of fine art and antiques.

The library at Dalmeny House in Edinburgh
The library at Dalmeny House in Edinburgh Credit: Danielle Booth

The Countess of Rosebery serves us tea in the library overlooking the Firth of Forth and points out rare Goya tapestries, a collection of 18th-century French furniture that includes the throne rug of Louis XIV, and Napoleonic artefacts from the Emperor’s shaving stand to the ceremonial pillow on which his head was laid after his death on St Helena.

And then we are catapulted back to the present with the distribution of glass keys for the ignitions of our vehicles. We are a small group, including two American couples who tell me they have his-and-hers Aston Martins at home. I am presented with a Vanquish with a six-litre V12 engine that can travel at over 200mph.

This is probably wasted on me, as I am no speed demon, even in a high-performance car that costs a thousand times its top speed. The drivers of plumbers’ vans who subsequently pass me on the Highland roads can attest to this.

Thankfully, it is a leisurely start through South Queensferry, a village on the Firth of Forth where Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have begun writing Kidnapped. He would hardly recognise the views from the windows of the historic Hawes Inn, now dominated by the iconic images of both the Forth rail and road bridges.

We are heading in a westerly direction to where the real grandeur of Scotland lies. The land rises to meet us on a narrow corkscrew of a road by Loch Long that leads us to a craggy amphitheatre of hills around Arrochar, dominated by a weirdly shaped summit, The Cobbler, which resembles a giant shoe last.

We turn a corner and drive into the 1750s, when English troops constructed a road through the majestic glen to subjugate rebellious Highlanders. Little has changed here since they completed its ascent to an 800ft ridge, and left a stone inscribed “Rest and be Thankful”, which remains true today for weary walkers and cyclists. Our host for lunch is Torquhil Campbell, 13th Duke of Argyll, Hereditary Master of the Royal Household in Scotland, and chieftain of the 13 million-strong Clan Campbell. He lives with his family in a fairy-tale mock Gothic castle at Inveraray on the shores of the romantic Loch Fyne.

Ghillie MItchell Partridge
Ghillie MItchell Partridge Credit: Gavin Bell

Despite his rank, the Duke is down to earth. Over a lunch of hake and shrimp in his elegant family dining room, he professes he is glad that times have changed, and “I don’t have to raise an army to beat up our neighbours”. Mementos of more turbulent times are preserved in an adjacent armoury hall with an impressive collection of muskets, broadswords and axes last used in the Battle of Culloden in 1746. One bayonet has 17 “kill” notches on it.

The current Duke is involved in more peaceful pursuits, administering a vast estate engaged in agriculture and forestry, an annual festival of folk music in the castle grounds and welcoming tourists to his palatial pile. “But it is a family home, not a museum,” he insists. When one of our party remarks how quiet it is, the Duke replies: “That’s because my children are on their iPads.”

Back on the road, we enter a land that evokes the era of dinosaurs. Rannoch Moor is a bleak, wind-blasted wilderness of treacherous bogs and freezing lochans. In such a primal landscape it feels as if there should be signs warning of low-flying pterodactyls.

Beyond lies secretive Glen Etive, that site of fictional Skyfall, and then the awful grandeur of Glen Coe. Glowering under dark skies and rising wind, it is arguably the most haunting and fearsome glen in Scotland, a dystopian vision of the jaws of hell. Yet it is magnificent, a geological monument to the wild, unconquered spirit of the western Highlands that stirs the blood.

Loch Ness
Loch Ness Credit: Fotolia

After all this drama, it is a relief to arrive in the warm embrace of Inverlochy Castle Hotel, by Ben Nevis. Queen Victoria said of it that she “never saw a lovelier or more romantic spot”. Our drive on Highland roads has sharpened appetites, and we are seated in the grandeur of the dining room (one of three in the castle-hotel) for a five-course tasting menu of modern British cuisine with a French influence – overseen by Albert and Michel Roux Jr, and paired with fine wines. Think beurre noisette poached Shetland turbot with mushrooms, parsley and garlic oil, washed down with Pinot Gris Eradus, 2015, and Carseview Farm lamb with polenta, aubergine and confit tomato served with Marques de Murrieta Rioja, Reserva 2011.

Illusions of being lord of the manor are heightened by a post-prandial game of snooker in a billiard room beneath an array of 12-pointer stag heads. Our route west now lies through the heart of mountains with rugged faces that change character in an instant. Beneath blue skies they are adventure playgrounds, then a dark squall of wind and rain transforms them into overbearing monsters that dare anyone to set foot on them.

Driving rain in Glenshiel reduces a lofty range known as the Five Sisters to shadowy creatures that seem to change shape as low clouds swirl around their crags. The glen is much as it was when Rob Roy MacGregor and his men fought as Jacobites against British government troops in 1719. It is a land of mists and illusions, where it is easy to imagine a ghostly skirl of bagpipes and the blue bonnets of doomed Highlanders lying in the bracken.

Then we are driving over the sea to Skye, literally, on the high, graceful span of the bridge that has rendered it technically an island no more. Our destination is Kinloch Lodge on Sleat, a peninsula dubbed the Garden of Skye, where crackling fires and a gourmet dinner by a Michelin-starred chef await us. It is just the ticket for banishing the ghosts of Bravehearts.

Kinloch Lodge on Skye
Kinloch Lodge on Skye Credit: Danielle Booth

Next morning the skies have cleared, and a local ghillie by the apt name of Mitchell Partridge leads a few of us on a walk along an ancient cattle-droving trail to a long-abandoned crofting township. Mitchell is an outdoor enthusiast who loves his job, guiding people through the landscape. We have barely begun when he spots a young golden eagle drifting in thermals above the crags.

Tales of clan feuds and battles follow, and the story of the village of Leitir Fura. Crumbling stone walls scattered on a hillside are all that remain of this community of about 40 souls, mostly of Clan MacInnes, who looked after the forest for their landlord and had a clandestine sideline in smuggling brandy and rum. In the early 19th century they emigrated lock, stock and barrel to Nova Scotia. “They had little choice,” Mitchell says. “The systematic destruction of the Highland way of life after Culloden made life hard.”

The view from Leitir Fura over the Sound of Sleat to the mainland hills of Moidart is much as it was the day they turned their backs on it. With sunlight glinting on dark water like burnished pewter, it has a wild beauty suffused with sadness.

Our final pitstop is Aldourie Castle, by Loch Ness. In 2015 it was purchased by a Danish billionaire on a mission to restore Highland estates, and who has transformed the castle into an exclusive-use country house. The castle itself began life in the 17th century as a laird’s house, and over the years it has acquired the fanciful towers and turrets of Scottish Baronial architecture.

My wife has joined me for this last lap of the tour. Activities on offer include archery, falconry and boat trips on the loch, but we opt for a two-mile stroll through woods to a village pub for lunch. Scrunching back through fallen leaves, with wavelets lapping quietly on the loch shore, we return to find a big, comfy sofa by a roaring fire to pass the afternoon perusing weekend newspapers.

As we prepare for a farewell dinner, preceded by a piper in full Highland regalia, my mind wanders back to Glen Etive, and a meeting with a German tourist. As I was sitting in the Aston Martin imagining Skyfall Lodge, he had driven up and paused and, with a smile, he said, “Guten tag, Herr Bond.” It made my day.

Elegant Resorts offers Elegant Journeys Luxury Driving Tours from £6,860 per person. Price includes flights, transfers, three nights’ accommodation on a breakfast basis, and a private tour director. Elegant Resorts Reservations can be reached on 01244 897771.

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