The area from the islands of Rum and Skye to Ullapool on the west coast mainland are, in my opinion, the most scenic in Scotland. Steep, attractive mountains fall straight into the sea, and the soil is soaked in bloody clan history.

Mind you, the weather is the wettest in the country, with Knoydart in the mainland enjoying an average of 5.5 metres of rain a year; and heavy, gloomy clouds can last for weeks on end, especially in winter. The days when the clouds clear are more valuable and magical as a result, and to travel this area in fine weather is a wonderful experience. When the mist closes in and the rain is falling horizontally, the unimaginitive visitor is likely to be disappointed. But let me tell you a small truth - given a cosy fire to go home to, it is just as possible to have fun in the rain, as it is in fine weather.

The oddly named (to Anglophone ears) islands of Muck, Eigg, Canna, and Rum, form the miniature archipelago of the 'Small Isles,' so called due to their size relative to Skye. Eigg is perhaps the most interesting, with historic tales and some unusual 'singing sands' in the north. The island has recently been bought collectively by the inhabitants, in the hope they will run it better than a recent succession of bad landowners. This is an encouraging aspect of West Highland culture, and hopefully one that succeeds. Every since the Clearances, the Highlands have been run by rapacious landowners. Of course, there have been noble exceptions, such as on the island of Colonsay, but the very system of ownership - where the people who lived on, and worked the land, were unable to profit properly from their labours - encouraged neglect. Collective, rather than individual ownership, will result in argument and indecision - but having the owners actually living on the land must surely be an improvement.

Next to Eigg lies the mountainous island of Rum, an island with a reputation of inaccessibility. For years after the Clearances it was a private island, run as a sporting estate by a rich family of English industrialists, and visitors were not welcome. This family, the Bulloughs, built an incredible castle on this remote and unpopulated island - remarkable not just for its ostentation, as for the unlikeliness of its setting. The island was sold to the Nature Conservancy Council (now SNH), who used the whole island as a kind of outdoor laboratory, and once again, visitor numbers were strictly regulated. There is no permanent population and no hotels or pubs, but there is a small shop and campsite near the ferry jetty. As a result of all this, visitors felt that the difficulties in reaching Rum were too great, and few people visited. On such a wonderfully interesting island this was a crying shame, but thankfully today the policy is one of come all ye, without restriction - all it takes is a ferry trip, and one of the most interesting islands in Scotland is yours to explore.

The Small Isles can be reached by ferry from the fishing port of Mallaig; as can the peninsula of Knoydart, the remotest part of the Scottish mainland. There are no roads to Knoydart, and it is a long walk over a rough hill pass to reach the one small village. The hills here are at their steepest and roughest; the lochs their deepest and most fjordlike. Loch Morar (an inland lake whose surface is barely 20m above sea level) is 310m deep, and is said to contain a large unidentified creature - rather like Loch Ness. Many walkers rave about Knoydart and claim it as their favourite place in Scotland, although I must confess it is a bit too rough, wet, trackless and publess for my own liking - an opinion coloured by the fact I have never been in Knoydart when it hasn't been raining. In Loch Arkaig, a large amount of Jacobite treasure is said to have been hidden in 1745, and never seen since. To the north of Knoydart, the fine scenery continues, and this time it is accesible by road. Loch Cluanie names the famous Cluanie curtain, a meteorological phenomena consisting of a raincloud which sits on the west coast but rarely extends east from Loch Cluanie. This raincloud helps fuel the most spectacular waterfall in Scotland (if not, at 150m, the highest), the vertingous falls of Glomach. A stiff tramp over a pass brings you the top of the falls - but from here you are unprepared for their full effect. A slippy and dangerous path descends to a rocky perch jutting out in front of the fall and the effect from here is quite stunning. Standing so close, one looks up and then way down to see the whole fall, and starts to feel worryingly dizzy.

One can enjoy the area just from the car, if that is your inclination. Picturesque hills called the Five Sisters rise close to the picture-postcard Eilean Donan castle, seen well from the road. It was built in 1220, destroyed in the Jacobite wars, then rebuilt with such skill in the 20thc that it is nearly impossible to see any join between old and new masonry. Its completeness - rare in picturesque west coast castles - makes it a favourite for filmmakers and it has appeared in numerous films, most famously 'Highlander,' and more recently in the James Bond film 'the World is Not Enough.' One is not far from the new Skye bridge, with its controversially high tolls have recently been scrapped. It is still possible to reach Skye by ferry, on the Glenelg to Kylerhea route, or from Mallaig to the south.

The magical island of Skye. The island is an agglomeration of peninsulas, over 50 miles wide and 50 miles long - but thanks to the convoluted nature of the coastline, nowhere on the island is more than 3 miles from the sea. All these peninsulas have their own character, and visiting Skye is like visiting five seperate islands. The southern peninsula is the low and fertile Sleat, where the Macdonald clan has its headquarters, Armadale Castle. Another castle, with a wonderful outlook, is Dunscaith; now ruined but featuring in the 2000 year old classical literature of Ireland as the place where one of the main heroes in Irish mythology, Cuchullain, came to spend his youth and learn how to fight. Fighting has always seemed to be a prominent activity with Skye people - if not the Macleod and Macdonald clans engaged in one of the bloodiest and longest feuds in Scottish history, then in the inordinately large number of Skye men who joined the British army to fight abroad in the 18th and 19thc. These days battles take place on the shinty field, a game which looks superficially like a violent form of hockey, and which is unique to Ireland and Highland Scotland.

Perhaps the Skiannachs have been inspired by their island's tumultuous geography. In the second peninsula, Minginish, sit the steepest, narrowest, rockiest, most barren and spectacular hills in Britain, the Cuillin. Unlike almost every other hill in Britain, the Cuillin require rock climbing ability to reach their summits, and the ridges between the tops can be narrow enough to sit upon and dangle one's legs over 1000ft drops on either side. To add to the general technical difficulty, sudden seamists can blow in, literally within seconds; and as the rocks are magnetic in nature, a compass for navigation becomes useless. Despite this, the Cuillin remain extremely popular with climbers and experienced walkers, and the entire traverse of the main ridge is widely agreed to be the finest mountaineering expedition in the British Isles. When it is raining, many climbers sit around pubs and cafes, miserable: - a mistake, as the coastline has miles of seacliffs and sea stacks which in their own way, are as exhilarating and spectacular as the Cuillin ridges, especially on the Durinish peninsula.

The Trotternish peninsula is perhaps the most interesting of all. As well as Skye's neat capital, Portree, a ridge runs the length of the peninsula - easy going short grass rather than the extremities of the Cuillin - but with some of the strangest landscapes available between Iceland and the Dolomites. Volcanic landslips have revealed cliffs and weird pinnacles. From the road, one heads up to the area of the Quirang, a strange forest of rock towers. One winds one's way up through these strange formations to suddenly come across a flat, grassy table, surrounded by pinnacles, eerie in the mist. The Storr, also on Trotternish, replicates this weirdness. Volcanic seacliffs with columnar, Giants Causeway-like formations and mountain and sea views run up the east coast of Trotternish, the most famous (because it can be seen from a tourist car park, rather than being more spectacular than the rest of the coast) being Kilt rock, a cliff said to look like the pleats in a kilt. At the top of Trotternish, one comes to Duntulm castle, now a ruin, but with a heavenly outlook over an island studded bay to the Western Isles. Duntulm is said to have been occupied until a former occupant, in the form of a ghost, made such a nuisance of themselves that the entire household got fed up and moved to a new castle!