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Walks and nature
in Sutherland.

It’s 21:32 in Sutherland.
Sutherland

Flow Country bog and Handa's seabird cliffs.

Nature in Sutherland works on a huge scale. At Forsinard, a trail winds through the pools of a vast blanket bog, with red deer and breeding birds in season. Off the coast at Tarbet, Handa's cliffs fill with puffins, guillemots and razorbills each summer. The limestone hides caves, from the great mouth of Smoo Cave at Durness to the Bone Caves above Inchnadamph, where reindeer and bear bones were found. Knockan Crag explains how the rocks were made, and seals haul out on the sandbanks of Loch Fleet. The Handa ferry runs from April to September only.

Loch Maree→
Golspie Burn Waterfall & Gorge→
Handa Island→
Knockan Crag National Nature Reserve→
Achmelvich Coast Walk→
The Bone Caves→
Wailing Widow Falls→
Forsinard Flows→
Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve→
Falls of Shin→
Place of the day19 hours ago

Achmelvich Coast Walk.

Small white-sand beaches in rocky coves near Lochinver, with a path along the headlands past the tiny concrete Hermit's Castle.

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From our guide18 hours ago

The Bone Caves.

High on a limestone crag above Inchnadamph, four dark cave mouths look out over a quiet glen. Digs here since the 1880s have turned up the bones of animals from the depths of the ice age: reindeer, arctic fox, lynx, brown bear and what may be Scotland's only polar bear. Much later, in the Neolithic, people buried their dead in the caves. The walk up follows the Allt nan Uamh, the burn of the caves, past little waterfalls, and the last climb to the caves is steep. From inside the largest, you look straight back down the glen.

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Free16 hours agoWester RossLoch MareeAttractionAssyntFalls of ShinAttractionSutherlandLoch Fleet National Nature ReserveAttractionSutherlandGolspie Burn Waterfall & GorgeAttractionSutherlandWailing Widow FallsAttraction

Free to visit.

Beaches, waterfalls, viewpoints and stones: nothing to pay and nobody to ask.

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Newly discovered15 hours agoSutherlandThe River BothyCafeSutherlandBen LoyalAttractionSutherlandKnockan Crag TrailWalkSutherlandWailing Widow FallsAttractionSutherlandLochinver LarderAttractionSutherlandAchnahaird BeachAttraction

Some good places to go, newly added to the site.

The newest places on our pages in Sutherland.

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From our guide13 hours ago

Smoo Cave.

On the eastern edge of Durness, a narrow, steep-sided inlet cuts into the limestone cliffs, and at its head yawns the huge mouth of Smoo Cave. Steps lead down from the car park, and a footbridge crosses the burn to the entrance. The first chamber, carved by the sea, is about 50 feet high at the mouth. Beyond it, a river drops through a hole in the roof into an inner chamber in a roaring waterfall. The name probably comes from the Old Norse for a hiding place, and people have sheltered here since prehistoric times.

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From our guide12 hours ago

Forsinard Flows.

At Forsinard, where the road and the railway cross the emptiest part of Sutherland, the land opens out into the Flow Country: mile after mile of blanket bog and glittering pools under huge skies. The RSPB looks after more than 21,000 hectares of it. From the station, a boardwalk leads out across the bog to the Flows Lookout, a curved timber tower with the whole of the Flows around it. In spring and summer, listen for golden plover and greenshank, and watch for hen harriers. Look down, too, for sundews trapping insects in their sticky leaves.

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From our guide10 hours ago

Wailing Widow Falls.

Where Loch na Gainmhich spills out of its hollow in the hills, the water falls about thirty metres into a deep, narrow gorge beside the road south from Kylesku. This is the Wailing Widow, named, depending on who tells the tale, for a wife or a mother who threw herself into the gorge in grief. From the small parking area by the road, a rough, stony path climbs the gorge to the foot of the falls in fifteen minutes or so. You can also walk along the loch shore to the top. There is no railing up there, so keep well back.

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Somewhere to go8 hours ago

Golspie Burn Waterfall & Gorge, Sutherland.

A short walk up a wooded gorge at Golspie, over a string of wooden footbridges above the burn, to a waterfall, with spring flowers in May and June.

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From our guide7 hours ago

Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve.

Between Dornoch and Golspie, the sea slips through a narrow mouth into a wide, shallow basin. At high tide Loch Fleet is a sheet of water fringed with pines. As the tide falls, sandbanks and mudflats appear, and with them come the birds and the seals. Flocks of ducks and waders feed on the flats, and common seals haul out on the sandbanks, with pups in summer. Stop at the lay-by on the Skelbo road to watch them. At the north-west end, the road crosses the Mound, a causeway built by Thomas Telford in 1816.

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From our guide5 hours ago

Knockan Crag National Nature Reserve.

Knockan Crag is where the rocks of the north-west explain themselves, and you need no geology at all to enjoy it. Here, much older rock sits on top of younger limestone and quartzite, which baffled scientists for years. Ben Peach and John Horne, mapping these hills from the 1880s, showed that colliding continents had pushed the old rock up and over the new along a great fault, the Moine Thrust. The open-air Rock Room tells the story, and bronze figures of the two men sit by the path. Walk the short trail to put your hand on the line where the rocks meet.

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From our guide4 hours ago

Handa Island.

From spring to late summer, Handa belongs to the seabirds. A little ferry crosses to the island from Tarbet, north of Scourie, between April and September, and a four-mile path loops all the way round. On the cliffs of the north and west, the ledges are packed with guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars, and puffins are about from May to July. Great skuas nest on the moor in the middle, so keep to the path. The Scottish Wildlife Trust looks after the island. There are no shops and no dogs, so bring a picnic and waterproofs.

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From our guide2 hours ago

Falls of Shin.

In Achany Glen, a few miles south of Lairg, the River Shin pours through a rocky gorge in a rush of white water. In summer you can watch wild salmon here, leaping the falls on their way upriver to spawn. A viewing platform looks straight onto the falls from across the road. Around them, woodland walks wind through the trees, from a quarter of an hour to an hour, and there is a play park for children. The visitor centre has a café for coffee, cake and lunch afterwards.

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