Heading east along Loch Tay, Kenmore (4 miles) is the nearest village with a grocery shop, pub, post office and riding stables. There is boat and pedalo hire down at the marina and just outside the village at Taymouth Castle is an 18 hole golf course.

The Scottish Crannog Centre, out on the loch just half a mile from Kenmore, is definitely worth a visit with its impressive ancient reconstructed loch dwelling that has an exhibition that offers great insight into early Iron Age life.

Aberfeldy (11 miles) is the place to stock up on supermarket supplies and there is also a cinema, a petrol station and a watersports centre that offers white water rafting and paddle boarding. Pitlochry, with its famous dam and fish ladder, is reachable in under an hour and the bustling city of Perth is just an hour and a half away.

Heading west from the cottage is an area that is very popular with fans of ‘munro bagging’, the sport of climbing munros (peaks that are over 3,000 feet high). There are 284 in total spread out across Scotland and 8 of them are situated here alongside the loch. The best known is Ben Lawers (10 miles) that is actually the UK’s tenth highest mountain standing at just under 4,000 feet. It is part of the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve which is home to rare arctic-alpine flora due to its climate and the high altitude.

Killin (14 miles) has a small supermarket and a range of interesting shops, including an outdoor centre that hires out canoes, kayaks, bicycles and walking equipment. The village is known for the scenic Falls of Dochart that run right through it. They can best be seen from the bridge or down on the rocks right by the water when the river is low. A short walk up from the falls stands the Kinnell Stone Circle, a small prehistoric standing stone circle that is thought to date back to the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC.