THE WINTER WARMER 2027

3 Day Classic Touring Rally

17-21 March, 2026

The Highland Winter Warmer is not simply a rally; it is a celebration of great roads, remarkable scenery and the pleasure of sharing both with like-minded enthusiasts. Based once again at the welcoming Coul House Hotel, this three-day touring event explores some of the most spectacular driving routes in northern Scotland, from the shores of Loch Ness and the winding roads of the Black Isle to the dramatic mountain passes and Atlantic coastlines of Wester Ross.

Across three carefully crafted days, participants will experience challenging mountain roads, hidden glens, remote sea lochs and some of the most memorable driving sections anywhere in Britain. Along the way there will be coffee stops in characterful Highland towns, lunches in stunning locations and evenings spent beside open fires, exchanging stories from the day’s adventures.

Whether it is your first Highland Winter Warmer or a welcome return to familiar roads, the event offers something increasingly rare: the opportunity to disconnect from the everyday world and immerse yourself in the simple joy of driving.

Three days. Hundreds of miles. Countless memories.

Day 1 – Wednesday 18 March
The Black Isle and the Far North

From the gates of Coul House the route heads immediately into the hills, and the everyday world is left behind. Eight special sections fan out across Ross-shire — through the Foulis peninsula, north past the home of Glenmorangie, across the Kyle of Sutherland at Bonar Bridge, then back south over the Cromarty Bridge and into the labyrinth of the Black Isle.

A coffee stop in Dornoch and lunch on the Black Isle punctuate a day that builds steadily toward its finest hour: the vertiginous East Watergate descent and the atmospheric Fairy Glen Falls section, where the trees close in and the light turns to something close to dusk even in mid-afternoon. By the time the final Conon section delivers you back to Coul House, eight sections and a cast of unforgettable roads lie behind you. The fire will be lit. You have earned it.

Day 2 – Thursday 19 March
Loch Ness and the Great Glen

The longest day, and the most varied. Heading south through Strathpeffer and Conon Bridge, the route sweeps past Glen Ord Distillery and down through the Foxhole section’s exhilarating tree-lined descent to the shores of Loch Ness. A coffee stop beside the loch steadies the nerves before the route crosses Inverness and picks up the military road south along the eastern shore.

The afternoon’s centrepiece needs no introduction. The Corkscrew above the Falls of Foyers — brutally steep, relentlessly tight — is one of the great byway experiences in Scotland, and the thundering falls far below are entirely indifferent to your careful progress. After lunch on the lonely B862, the route loops back north through the Great Glen past the ruins of Urquhart Castle, tackles the sharp hairpins of the Achmony section above Drumnadrochit, and winds home through Foxhole 2 and Croit Na Maoile with the familiar outline of Ben Wyvis on the horizon. The bar will be open. You will need it.

Day 3 – Friday 20 March
To the Edge of the World

The shortest day in distance, the grandest in ambition. Turning west from Coul House, the route heads directly into the most remote landscape of the event — sea lochs, mountain passes, Atlantic horizons. After the Meig Dam section and coffee at The Midge Bite, the road pushes west through Lochcarron and along the Colonel’s Road before arriving at the day’s unmistakable centrepiece.

Bealach na Bà — the Pass of the Cattle — rises to over 2,000 feet in a series of brutally tight hairpins before revealing the entire coastline of Wester Ross from its summit. It is not for the faint-hearted, and it is entirely unmissable. Lunch near Gairloch, then north along Loch Ewe for the Convoy section, named for the Arctic Convoys that sailed from Aultbea to supply the Soviet Union — a story the museum here tells with quiet power. Gruinard Island, visible from the shore and notorious as the site of wartime biological weapons testing, provides a more sobering footnote.

The Little Garve section brings the Highland Winter Warmer to its close, the pines parting one last time to reveal Coul House ahead. Three days, three directions, roads that most people will never find. Until next year.

The Venue
Coul House Hotel, Contin, Ross-shire

Set in eighteen acres of woodland on the edge of the village of Contin, Coul House Hotel has been the spiritual home of the Highland Winter Warmer since the event’s inception. With open fires, excellent food and drink, and the kind of welcome that only a privately owned Highland hotel can provide, it is the ideal base from which to explore some of the finest driving roads in Europe.

All participants are accommodated at Coul House for the duration of the event. Dinners are taken together each evening, and the bar has a well-earned reputation for remaining open as long as the stories are still flowing.