Introduction

There’s not much of the map left when you reach Sandwood Bay. As the eagle flies, it sits a mere six miles from Cape Wrath, the north-westerly extreme of the Scottish mainland – and the beach is every bit as remote as that description would suggest. It’s accessible via a 75-minute walk from the nearest car park, at the crofting hamlet of Blairmore, and after the legwork you’ll expend in the journey, the beach’s pinkish, cliff-flanked sands arrive as a kind of promised land.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, its reputation is as sizeable as its mile-wide breadth. Sandwood Bay regularly gets named as one of the most beautiful beaches in Britain, a distinction only heightened by the fact that even on a ‘busy’ day here, the sense of emptiness and escape is profound. The sands are backed by ranks of hefty dunes, behind which spreads the freshwater, trout-filled expanse of Sandwood Loch, although the main draw is the vast arc of the beach itself, gazing out across the North Atlantic.

Setting off the panorama of sand, cliffs, dunes and ocean, meanwhile, is the towering sea stack of Am Buachaille, which stands sentinel to the southwest. Its 65-metre-high sandstone pinnacle is renowned among climbers – despite the short swim required to reach it – and the stack was summited for the first time back in 1968. Its Gaelic name, incidentally, translates as ‘The Herdsman’, thought to come from the breaking waves at the stack’s base, which can create the impression of white sheep.

Since 1993, Sandwood Bay and the surrounding land – an atmospheric area of dune grassland and machair – have been owned by the John Muir Trust, which is responsible for keeping the long path from Blairmore in a usable condition for walkers. Which, when you consider the beach that lies at the path’s end, is some responsibility.