Scotland holidays: Highland Games heaven at Loch Lomond

Really, it’s just like chucking a seven-year-old child over a double-decker bus, the commentator advised us over the loudspeaker at the Helensburgh & Lomond Highland Games.

He was explaining the technique for throwing a 56lb weight over a 16 ft-high bar.

They love throwing things at Highland Games. It is a useful skill in a rural community. Shot puts, hammers, sheaves of corn and, of course, cabers.

Another valued skill for sheep farmers is running up and down hills. No level playing fields here.

The Helensburgh Games take place on a gentle slope but the going is much tougher at the Luss Highland Games, on the shores of Loch Lomond.

Then there’s the Braemar Games near Balmoral, which the Queen never fails to attend.

‘Anyone who does the Luss Hill Race, slowly up that steep slope, then very fast down again, must have something wrong with their head,’ said the loudspeaker man.

We were
staying in Luss at the Loch Lomond Arms. Newly restored by the laird,
Sir Malcolm Colquhoun, it’s a boutique hotel where stuffed creatures
lurk in glass cases.

Luss is signposted ‘Scotland’s prettiest village’.

We
took a leisurely cruise around the nearby islands from the pier. There
are 23 of them and some have brutal histories – Sir John Colquhoun, for
example, was murdered on Inchmurrin in 1439.

There are fine views of Ben Lomond, the southernmost Munro, and of an ospreys’ nest atop a Scots pine on Inchcailloch.

Wallabies were imported years ago but sightings these days are almost as infrequent as visits by Sir Alex Ferguson, who has a holiday home at the nearby Carrick golf course.

My wife played a round at the neatly manicured Buchanan Castle golf course – she told me I was too shabbily dressed to accompany her.

Green fee players are also welcome at nearby Helensburgh, but the Loch Lomond Club is an exclusive affair where the joining fee is said to be £80,000. So I went to church instead.

A lady handing out SNP leaflets was uncompromising in her views on Scottish independence.

Then the minister at Luss parish church gave a fire-and-brimstone sermon taking in Bannockburn and Robert the Bruce.

This year’s Luss Highland Games are on July 5. It will be a life-enhancing event when haggis and drams are consumed and nothing is worn under the kilt. Try to be there.

Travel Facts: Plan your own Scottish escape

Double rooms at the Loch Lomond Arms start at £120 B&B (01436 860 420, www.lochlomondarmshotel.com).

Highland Games details at www.lusshighlandgames.co.uk.