It's no real surprise that the Scotsman whose job it is to produce a coherent strategy for Britain's struggling transport system has an escape route northwards, along an ancient drovers' road in the Highlands.
Lord MacDonald of Tradeston, or Gus to his friends, used to walk the 11 miles from Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse in Glencoe when he was a teenager in Glasgow. He and his fellow apprentices would go up there to stretch their legs after another week in the shipyards.
Forty years on, the minister of transport likes to make it his first big walk of the season, starting at the ancient Inveroran Hotel, where walkers and climbers have replaced the cattle drovers of the old days. This route was also used by General George Wade for his military road into the Highlands in the 1720s, and is now part of the West Highland Way.
You start among the old Caledonian pine trees around Loch Tulla and its islets, then strike uphill across the shoulder of the 3,250ft mountain of Stob Ghabhar.
"The path is quite gentle, but you have the great bowl of the mountains all around you and it's very bleak - no shelter for six or eight miles, not even a tree, so if you get caught out it can be pretty miserable," says MacDonald.
"But on a good day, it's beautiful, and at the right time of year you can hear the deer in the corries. You can't see them, but they make this strange, deep braying noise, which can sound quite eerie. In the 1620s, James VI used to go hunting here for the rare white deer."
This area, called Black Mount, is connected to the Fleming family whose most famous member was the creator of James Bond.
"Then you come to the highest part with a great view of the mountains, and you can see as far as Schiehallion, a great pyramidal shape over in Perthshire. And after that, you begin to drop down into Glencoe which, if you're a MacDonald, has a special and sombre significance.
Glencoe is Scotland's most doom-laden valley where 37 of MacDonald's own clan were massacred by the Campbells and English troops in 1692.
"Sometimes, when it's raining and cloudy, there can be nowhere sadder and more gloomy than Glencoe. As you come down, you see the White Corries, where they have the ski-lift to take you to the tops, and beyond them is Buchaille Etive Mor, which I think translates as the great shepherd of Glen Etive."
It's a moderate walk of four to five hours ending at an inn, which claims to be the oldest in Scotland, in Kingshouse at the head of Glencoe.
MacDonald likes to go with his wife and old friends from Glasgow: "I just enjoy the physical effort of it, and I love the hills and mountains with which Scotland is particularly blessed.
"I lived in London from the 1960s to the 1980s and when I went back to work for Scottish TV in 1985, being near the mountains again was one of the best things about it. And you get so many changes in the weather, four seasons in a day sometimes, and such wonderful skies rolling across from the west."
Scotland's open policy
Access to the countryside in Scotland is about to go through a revolution that will give people wider rights than in most European countries and could set a radical precedent for the future in the rest of the United Kingdom.
While people in England and Wales will soon have legal right of access to open and uncultivated land - the so-called right to roam - the Scots are looking forward to being granted access everywhere, including cultivated farmland, forests, riverbanks and the coast.
A draft bill proposing these rights will be introduced to the Scottish Parliament in the next few weeks, and the backing of the Executive - a Labour-Liberal coalition - and the Scottish National Party makes it virtually certain it will become law.
What is perhaps most surprising is that the main representatives of land owners support the legislation, which is based on the unanimous recommendations of an Access Forum which brought relevant bodies together and deliberated for 18 months.
The legislation creates a mirror-image of the situation in England and Wales, where there is no access to private land unless a right of way is established or conceded. In Scotland, it's expected that that access will be limited only for reasons of privacy and environ mental protection, and the challenge will be to manage it successfully.
A vital part of the new bill will require local councils to establish and maintain a "core network" of paths, especially near towns and cities in the Lowlands, where it is felt that comparatively few routes for walking, cycling and riding are available.
"The effect is likely to be a huge change in attitude," says Dave Morris, director of the Ramblers' Associa tion Scotland. "Users will be a lot more confident once they have this right to go anywhere, providing they don't do any damage, while landowners will have the responsibility of accepting that freedom and welcoming people.
"It shouldn't be too difficult - the Duke of Buccleuch is the biggest landowner in Scotland and he's been operating on that basis for years.
"People coming to Scotland with loads of money to buy up land will be told that people will have access to that land and this is something they'll have to deal with."
Meanwhile, pressure groups in England and Wales are looking beyond the imminent "right to roam" legislation and preparing to push for right of access to riverbanks and woodland as well. Many recognise, however, that access to the heavily-cultivated farmland in parts of England might prove more difficult.
The practicals
For general information, call the Scottish Tourist Board brochure hotline on 08705 511511, www.visitscotland.net. For detailed travel factsheets, call 0131 332 2433. OS Landranger maps numbers 50 (Glen Orchy and Lcoh Etive) and 41 (Ben Nevis and Glencoe) and 39 (Loch Lormond). Recreational Path Guide: The West Highland Way, Anthony Burton, Aurum Press, £12.99.
