Best of travel: Explore the highlands by plane with The Carnegie Club
The private plane I’m boarding at South London’s Biggin Hill would be ideal for anyone who owns a desert island or alpine ski lodge. It’s a multi-talented Pilatus PC-12 NG. My destination is closer to home but even more exclusive: The Carnegie Club at Scotland’s Skibo Castle.
My pilot, Edwin Brenninkmeyer, who is also Pilatus’s distributor for the British Isles, describes the PC-12 as an SUV of the skies. You can go anywhere and do anything you want with it. It can take off and land in very short distances on unmetalled surfaces such as gravel, snow or, as confirmed when we touched down with barely a bump on the tiny Easter airfield near Tain, grass.
Inside the exclusive Highlands members’ club where billionaires go to get away from it all
If 2020 taught us one thing, it s that a remote retreat is practically priceless - and if it s a lavish Scottish castle, even better
Skibo Castle, home to The Carnegie Club
Credit: The Carnegie Club - Chris Close
It’s late afternoon on a blustery Halloween in the Highlands, and I’m enjoying the soporific crackle of an open fire, about to tuck into a second round of cucumber finger sandwiches. A family sweeps in bubbling with nervous excitement, having been chased by witches and ghouls on the dusk ‘ghost walk’ taking place in the castle grounds outside.