Castle Varrich – an Old Tower Over the Kyle of Tongue
A few hours.
The route
Castle Varrich is a small ruined tower on a wooded bluff above the Kyle of Tongue, and a path climbs to it from the village for a view down the long sands of the Kyle and south to Ben Loyal.
Lunch is in the Brass Tap Bar at the Tongue Hotel, and afterwards the road south runs to the Cnoc Craggie viewpoint at the head of Loch Loyal. It suits anyone happy with an hour's walk on a hill path.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is Lundies House, 3 miles away.
The day
Tongue
A walk up through the birches to an old tower over the Kyle, a hot lunch by the bar, then a short drive to the head of Loch Loyal.
About three hoursAbout 2 miles on foot
Castle Varrich
An attraction
Park in the small car park for Castle Varrich in the middle of Tongue, a few steps from the Tongue Hotel. From there a path of about a mile leads west out of the village and winds up through birch woods and bracken to the ruined tower on its bluff above the Kyle of Tongue. Nobody is quite sure how old Castle Varrich is: some say the Norse built the first castle here, others that the Mackays or the Bishops of Caithness raised it in the 1500s. From the top you look down the sands and shallows of the Kyle to the causeway, and south to the peaks of Ben Loyal. Allow about an hour there and back, more with time at the top. The last part climbs, and the bluff ends in crags above the water, so keep children close at the top and go in daylight.
About 5 min on foot
The Brass Tap Bar, Tongue Hotel
Lunch
Back in the village, lunch is in the Brass Tap Bar at the Tongue Hotel, a short walk from the car park. It opens every day from noon, with food served from noon to 5.30pm and walk-ins welcome, and on Fridays there's takeaway fish and chips from 3pm to 5pm. Well-behaved dogs are welcome. The hotel's own Varrich Bar serves tea, coffee and scones by a roaring fire. If the Brass Tap is full, Burr's of Tongue, the old village store brought back to life as a bakery, does coffee, scones and focaccia until 3pm, Wednesday to Sunday.
9 min by car
Cnoc Craggie
An attraction
From Tongue it's about 9 minutes' drive south-east on the A836 to the Cnoc Craggie viewpoint, in an old quarry at the head of Loch Loyal. There are sculpted seats and a panel explaining the land around. The view runs over the loch to the hills, and north across open peatland to the dark line of Borgie Forest, planted in the 1920s and one of the first state forests in Scotland. The straight lines in the bog in front of you are the marks of peat cut long ago for fuel. It's a windswept spot with no shelter, at its best on a clear day.
If it rains
The castle path and the viewpoint are open to the weather: on a wet day keep the walk short and make the Brass Tap the warm part of the morning; the view at Cnoc Craggie can be had from the car.
Worth a detour
- Lettermore, Loch Loyal
A few miles further south along Loch Loyal, a roofless stone cottage and its lone, wind-bent tree stand on the moor below the long ridge of Ben Loyal, with an old stone bridge over a burn nearby. Stop in a passing place on the A836 and walk the few steps across. It adds about 12 minutes at the wheel, there and back.
Burr’s of Tongue, a café in Tongue.
Photograph by Tongue Hotel via Google