Three Days at Highland Heather Lodges, Crieff

There are almost too many amazing lodges in Scotland to mention, but last week we found one of the very best, with a 30day stay at the beautiful Highland Heather Lodges near Crieff, during what Terry optimistically – but totally misguidedly – kept referring to as his ‘birthday week’.

(I mean, it WAS his birthday, sure, but we were only there for three days after all, and … yeah, we don’t do birthday weeks around here, sorry Terry.)

Now, as you might have gathered from my Scottish travel archive, lodges in Scotland have kind of become our thing this year: and there are two very good reasons for that. The first can be seen in the photos above: I mean, it’s straight-up gorgeous, right? The second reason, meanwhile, can be seen right here:

Lodges in Scotland are basically built for family holidays

You’re probably thinking I’m just giving him a hug here, and you are, of course, correct. I’m probably also just desperately trying to get him to stand still for a second, though, because the fact is, this is a boy who never stops moving if he can possibly help it. We’ve long since come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with all of that energy is to give him as much space as possible to run it off, and Highland Heather Lodges definitely had plenty of that.

Located right next to the pretty little village of Comrie, in Perthshire, the lodges are set amongst beautiful rolling hills, in the perfect countryside setting. Each lodge has its own private decked area, complete with hot tub, but there was also plenty of space around them for Max to run around and explore. Just outside our lodge, in fact, there was a little play area, which he absolutely loved, but he also had tons of fun just wandering around and being amazed by everything, basically: especially the chickens, who he liked enough to offer this one some of his banana…

(It’s OK, it didn’t get close enough to take it: I’m not familiar enough with chickens and their ways to have actually let him feed one…) As well as the chickens, there were also sheep and ponies in the surrounding fields, and we even saw a red squirrel running around outside our lodge one morning, which was exciting enough for us all to have to line up at the window to watch it, like it was on TV or something.

(You can find red squirrels in various different parts of the UK, but the fact that this was only the second one I’ve seen in my entire life – the other one ALSO being a Perthshire-based squirrel, actually – shows you how rare they’ve become…) On our first night, I’d just finished putting Max to bed when Terry beckoned me out onto the deck, and instructed me to close my eyes and just listen.

Sure enough, what initially seemed to be pure silence surrounding us was actually punctuated by the sounds of birds chirping, sheep bleating, and various other countryside noises, which made the entire area feel a bit like a real-life white noise machine, as Terry put it. It was SO relaxing. Especially when enjoyed from the comfort of the hot tub, say, and accompanied by a chilled glass of the Prosecco our hosts had very kindly left for us:

Inside our lodge:

I loved the high ceilings and spacious feel of our lodge, but I really loved the Philippe Starck shower in our ensuite bathroom/wetroom, which had three nozzles – one regular overhead one, and then two more horizontal ones, which were perfect for those days when you don’t want to wash your hair. (You could, of course, use all three if you particularly wanted to, but I loved being able to just jump into the shower without worrying about getting my hair wet in the process.)

(The little green shed next to the lodge housed a sauna, which was shared by all of the lodges, plus some outdoor toys, should you feel the need to indulge in a giant game of Connect 4, say…)

What to do when you’re staying at Highland Heather Lodges

As for the location, well, I have a couple of other posts planned on what we got up to during our three day break, but suffice it to say that, despite the secluded setting (One of the things we loved most about our lodge was how private it was: there were guests staying in the other lodges, but when we were out in the hot tub, for instance, it would’ve been easy to believe we were totally alone…), Highland Heather is right on the outskirts of the village of Comrie, and just ten minutes from the larger town of Crieff, so you’re never very far from civilisation. The fabulous Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre, for instance, was almost on our doorstep (Spoiler alert: we LOVED it…), and we also had a lovely morning exploring Drummond Castle Gardens, which you might have seen snippets of on my Instagram.

Those, however, are other posts for other days: for now, I’ll simply leave you with, a) this link to the Highland Heather Lodges website, where you can read more, and make a booking, and, b) A slightly awkward family photo, which nevertheless sums up what a great time we had there:

Thanks for having us, Highland Heather: we hope to see you again soon!

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