Contin

Into Contin’s woods

Opposite the Contin Village Store, a waymarked path leaves the road and slips into the pines, heading for Rogie Falls. This is a woodland village on the Black Water, set in a belt of Scots pine, oak, birch and heather that runs between the river and the slopes climbing towards Ben Wyvis.

The gentlest is the Black Water Trail, barely half a mile of flat gravel through the forest, wide and even enough for small children and good for spotting red squirrels. From the same forest the View Rock Trail climbs harder, 2¾ miles (4.5 km) up through oak, birch, pine and heather to a rocky viewpoint over Strathconon. Between the two, the network of forest roads and paths is used for mountain biking, and there are picnic tables, seasonal toilets and a car park to set off from. The woods hold pine martens as well as squirrels.

Falls and country-house dining

Rogie Falls is a couple of miles west, where the Black Water drops in a run of falls carrying water down off Ben Wyvis. A firm gravel path leads to the viewpoint and a suspension bridge slung over the gorge, and from it you can watch for salmon leaping, especially in autumn. Beside the main drop is a narrow artificial channel, built with the Blackwater hydro scheme, that gives the fish a way up when the river is low. A rougher riverside path carries on past dark pools and Raven's Crag before turning back through pine, heather and blaeberry.

For food and a bed, the village's licensed option is the Coul House Hotel, a country house whose lounge bar and restaurant are open to non-residents as well as guests. The chef, Garry Kenley, cooks contemporary Scottish food alongside older favourites and makes almost everything from scratch, down to the pastry and the ice cream. The hotel highlights homemade scones, shortbread and bridies, as well as venison, hare, halibut, scallops, crab cakes and home-cured salmon, and there is local beer and a run of single malts at the bar. Dogs are welcome through most of the hotel, though not in the formal dining rooms, and the grounds hold mature woods, a fairy trail and a pitch-and-putt.

Coul House and the island church

The house has had an unsettled history. It was built in 1821 for Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, to designs by Richard and Robert Dickson; the third Mackenzie baronet had joined the 1715 Jacobite Rising, been attainted, and forfeited the title. In 1949 it sold for £3,000, was divided into flats, ran as two guest houses in the 1960s, was reunited in 1968 and opened as a licensed hotel in 1978. Stuart and Susannah Macpherson have owned it since 2003.

The parish church stands on an island in the Black Water, the river running on both sides of it. Its plain harled walls are eighteenth century, but late-medieval work survives inside: a small mural sacrament house, uncovered only when the gallery stairs were moved, a blocked tomb recess, two late-medieval grave slabs and a stained-glass window by Roland Mitton, I am the Good Shepherd. Tradition puts a church here as far back as 690, founded by St Maelrubha, and the Macdonalds burned an earlier one on the site in the late fifteenth century. Contin was made a burgh of barony in 1681. Writing after the church was altered in 1832, the minister recorded that "it was long the most miserable place of worship in the shape of a parish church in the kingdom."

Winter riders and onward travel

Once a year the quiet breaks. In January, when there are fewer than eight hours of daylight and the tracks are often under snow, riders arrive for the Strathpuffer 24, a twenty-four-hour mountain-bike race run largely in the dark.

The A835 runs through Contin, east towards Inverness by way of Tore and the A9, west towards Garve and Ullapool. A regular bus links the village with Inverness, and the nearest railway station is at Garve, up the road towards Ullapool, an unstaffed stop with a waiting room, a small free car park and a rack for bikes. Strathpeffer, three miles from Coul House, has Victorian shops, a deli, a Pavilion and a museum.

A quiet loch nearby

Closer still is Loch Achilty, a small loch edged with sloping birch and oak. It has a pebble beach and a few quiet places to sit among the rowan and heather where you can eat your lunch.