A short steep track leads through trees to a stony beach. I went a few times looking for otters — scanning the loch’s surface for the wash of a swimming body. One evening, I heard a crunching on the pebbles and looked, expecting to see a human or two, perhaps the whiskey-drinking retired professor who lived by the loch’s edge. Instead, there were two roe deer, mother and fawn.

Like many British children, I read the two famous otter books — “Tarka the Otter” by Henry Williamson, fiction set in Devon and “Ring of Bright Water” by Gavin Maxwell, the true story of his experiences in western Scotland. Several years earlier, I backpacked and kayaked along Loch Nevis and stopped at Camusfearna, where Maxwell and several Middle Eastern and Highland otters had lived in and around a stone bothy, but the only otters I’d ever seen were in films or natural history programmes and at Vancouver Aquarium.

Descending to Achintee at the head of Loch Carron, I rounded a hummock and glimpsed a long muscular tail and clawed back feet pelting up and mostly covered by heather. Not much of a sighting, perhaps, but for days I couldn’t stop smiling about the image in my mind.

Each evening we put toast, stale bread and perhaps some jam or fruit sauce on the window sill and on what would usually be called a bird table. About 8pm, an animal with a long fluffy brown tail trailing on the ground, appeared. With its large paws and long claws, it stuffed crusts into its mouth and left, paying no attention to faces and cameras on the other side of the glass.

It was a pine marten, a small carnivore, related to stoats, weasels and badgers. As many are small enough to enter a chicken run or rabbit hutch and are effective killers, they are particularly unpopular with farmers and pet owners.

I was spending two weeks working as an assistant on Island Horizon’s walking holidays, run from Loch Carron near Kyle of Lockalsh. Employment opportunities here are limited, but there are spaces on walking, mountain biking and touring holidays at Loch Carron, Sutherland, Isles of Skyes and Mull and Ireland from March to November and around Christmas and New Year. Walks are tailored to group wishes — from a couple of hours along coasts to hidden bays and coral beaches to climbing Munros, mountains more than 3000ft (915m) high.

The houses “Junipers” and “Foxgloves” have all the comforts to appeal to walkers in the Scottish Highlands which can be cold, wet and midge-ridden at times. There’s plenty of hot water for showers or baths and a drying room for wet boots and clothes. There’s a roomy, comfortable carr, which doubles as a midge exclusion zone if everyone is quick getting in. The food is excellent and plentiful, even when I was involved in its preparation. Local products are used wherever possible — and products don’t come much more local than egg-yolk-yellow chanterelle mushrooms from secret spots in the forest and salmon from the farm in the loch. Vacuum flasks of clove flavoured apple juice are carried on walks and, in the houses and on the hills, water comes direct from streams and tastes wonderful.

Reaching Loch Carron is easy if you can afford the rail fare to Strathcarron, on the very scenic line from Inverness to Kyle of Lochlash. I couldn’t and so travelled by overnight National Express coach from Birmingham to Glasgow and then Scottish Citilink/Skyeways to Fort William. The first couple of hours were OK, but around 1am the coach filled with noisy, crisp eating tourists returning from Manchester Airport. From Fort William, it is another 80 miles to Loch Carron. I hitched as there was no bus directly to Loch Carron village, although the journey could probably be made by using several postbuses.

At Spean Bridge, just north of Fort William, the wreathes of red poppies drew attention to the base of the Commando Memorial, topped with the figures of three men looking out. They are a tribute to the men who trained in the surrounding Highlands during the WWII.

Driving through the Highlands, the designer who had given me a lift, commented on the similarity with the mountains he’d seen on journeys through Bosnia — most recently with returning refugees and their household goods.

Just short of Kyle, I asked to be dropped at the road junction to the north — a particularly bleak and unpromising looking place. I didn’t have to wait long before a Dutch woman stopped.

At Strathcarron railway station, I got out and telephoned, and then waited until a guest arrived on one of the three trains daily from Inverness. As there is a hotel at Strathcarron, it seemed a good place to wait, and an even better place when the landlord kept on providing free top ups of coffee. Then came the final lift through Loch Carron village to Leacanashie and the start of the very enjoyable work and walking.