HIDDEN GEMS:ACCESSIBLE ONLY BY train, Loch Ossian, in Scotland, is a beautiful Highland loch surrounded by a vast bog, Rannoch Moor. You arrive at remote Corrour Station, which featured in the film Trainspotting. These days there's an excellent restaurant in the old station house (www. corrourstationhouse.co.uk).
Opposite the station stands Leum Uilleim mountain; to the northwest you can see the twin Easain hills. Moorland extends as far as the eye can see. As the train pulls away into the folds of the landscape, this can seem a daunting place.
The nearby loch is exceptionally beautiful, however. A kilometre-long walk leads to its shores, which remain hidden until you reach a crest. Then laid out before you is a quintessential Highland scene: the loch, with its islands of Scots pine, nestled beneath hills.
The loch is named after the narrator of a collection of poems that the Highland poet James Macpherson published in 1762. The work, which was hugely popular, and influential among the Romantic movement, detailed the heroic life and times of Ossian’s father, the warrior king Fingal.
Macpherson claimed to have translated the poems from an ancient Scottish Gaelic source. But controversy raged over the authenticity of the work, which put a Scottish bent on the Irish stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s son Oisín.
At the western end of the loch lies an award-winning ecohostel run by the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. At the far end stands Corrour Lodge Castle. From the station you can walk or cycle a track that encircles the loch – a round trip of 14km.
The castle is more modern than one might expect, having huge triangular glass panels. You can hire the whole place for a party of 30. If you do, be sure to invite Ossian.
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