MY Great Highland Railways holiday, organised by Shearings, begins with an overnight stop in Tyne and Wear - after a five-hour coach drive from South Wales.

It's an early start next day and, before we hit the Scottish border, we have a mini tour of Newcastle.

Into Scotland and it's mile after mile of green forests, rolling fields and clear rivers.

Danny, our driver and courier, keeps everyone informed and amused with anecdotes and adds to the atmosphere with taped accordion and pipe music.

It's not long before we reach the Forth railway bridge, famous for its appearances in a number of films, most notably the classic thriller The 39 Steps. Keeping it close company is the road bridge, and the structure is not unlike the links from England to Wales - but surprisingly it only costs 80p for cars to cross and lorries are £2.

It's a long road up and the breaks on the way are most welcome. We arrive about seven hours later at the Highland Hotel in Strathpeffer, a chateau-style hotel set in attractive grounds and overlooking the village just below.

The weather is overcast on the next day. After a one-hour bus ride we reach Aviemore in the Cairngorms.

Then it's all aboard a stream train from Boat of Garten on the Strathspey Railway Company for a tour which goes to Broomhill - which doubles as Glenbogle in the popular BBC TV series Monarch of the Glen. On the way coffee and shortbread biscuits are dispensed liberally in our reserved buffet carriage.

Back at Aviemore and it's an eight-minute ride to the summit of CairnGorm Mountain, courtesy of a funicular railway.

This is skiing country in winter but in summer it takes on a very different appearance. The breathtaking mountains are true miracles of nature. The scenery is truly one of the best adverts for this part of Britain.

At the top there's an exhibition area with a film show, shop and restaurant. Halfway through our coffee there the clouds disappears and the views are splendid. Take it from me, there definitely won't be a Christmas tree shortage this year.

Michael Palin's TV odyssey Great Little Train Journeys a few years ago is revisited when we go electric, this time to the Kyle of Lochalsh from Dingwall.

Of the many little stations on the way, one at Plockton, where they filmed another TV series, Hamish Macbeth, has a caf on its platform.

Two hours later and we arrive to a view over the estuary to the Isle of Skye.

The Kyle has the usual cafes, pubs and restaurants and in one of these we have my first encounter with haggis, tatties and neeps - very tasty.

On the Wednesday we forego an optional extra tour and find the golf course at the top of Strathpeffer.

I have been lucky enough to have played some pretty impressive courses, but the first hole here is just brilliant. Four hundred yards down a glen to a green cut into a forest.

Evening entertainment at the hotel is, as you might expect, heavily slanted towards Scottish music.

On Thursday we again put in the hard miles to get to the last of the train journeys, way up on the east coast at Wick, which is eighteen miles from John O'Groats.

It's a long journey home, but with a pleasant overnighter in Gretna Green at the Gretna Hall Hotel preparing us for the road ahead.

The holiday was a great introduction to Scotland and its delights. There was a lot of time spent on the coach and trains, but the sights and quality of the Shearings hotel more than made up for this.