Abundant, large winkles can be found all around the coast - especially on the very rocky bits.

I gathered and cooked a few handfuls of these for a lunchtime starter and ate them with vinegar and pepper - they were great.

For a bit more detail on this once-popular mollusc, here's a link to a previous page on the subject (when I ate them at Lulworth Cove).

Huge clusters of mussels were in evidence on the rocks well below the tideline, including some really big ones.

I gathered a big pile of these and they were good - although there was an interesting surprise in store - details here.

The damp forest floors were great for wild mushrooms, like this excellent Chanterelle.

I found many other species, including Amethyst Deceivers (link to previous article).

Bilberries (known in Scotland as Blaeberries) were mostly finished by the time of our visit, but I managed to find a few handfuls on a rocky ledge by a waterfall.

In the woods, raspberries were everywhere and to my surprise and delight I also found some wild blackcurrant plants with lots of ripe fruit on them.

My son, David, was digging in the sand and came across a couple of these completely by accident - enormous, fat cockles.

We rummaged about nearby and in no time, had gathered enough for a hearty meal.

It may look pretty unpromising - and the common name ('floating gutweed') even worse, but this common seaweed - found mainly in rock pools toward the high tide mark - is edible and tasty.

On a rocky hilltop in woodland near the shores of Loch Maree, I found some juniper trees - one with lots of ripe berries on it.

I didn't eat these during the holiday, as they are a spice more than a wild food, but I brought a handful home - where I dried them and later used some of them to flavour a piece of Christmas gammon.

I'd love to be able to report that I found and ate some of these highly-prized molluscs - I know they were there, because I found a lot of their shells.

I looked long and hard for them in the fine sand at low tide, but came up empty-handed.

Maybe the tide wasn't quite low enough, or maybe I wasn't looking in quite the right places - but sadly, I didn't get to eat any of these.

I've long known that pine needles could be steeped in hot water to make a refreshing drink.

In Scotland, pine trees (Scots Pine) were everywhere - I picked some needles from a tree near Flowerdale Falls to make pine needle tea.

There were lots of limpets on the rocks on every beach - I've eaten these before (tasty, but very chewy).

I took this opportunity to experiment with tenderising them by long slow cooking - the details and results are here.