Exploring Beaches from Kinlochbervie

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28/11/25

After Durness, we drove around more of the NC500 road. heading south and away from the north coast. On our right was the wild and desolate landscape of the Cape Wrath peninsular – one of the most remote areas of the British isles, with limited vehicular access to it’s interior. The view to the left was no less empty, mountains and lochans and moor.

Reaching Kinlochbervie felt like a bit of a shock after such a lonely drive. It’s a harbour village with a fish processing plant and lorries trundling back and forth. Somewhere real things happen, not ‘just’ tourism. The local community allow motorhomes to park on one of the harbours for a fee of £10 (the other harbour is the working one), and hookup is provided for another £5.

Parked on Kinlochbervie harbour

The harbour was empty of tourers when we arrived, there were just a couple of permanently pitched caravans that we assumed belong to seasonal workers or locals. Pitching on a harbour is always very easy as the ground tends to be pretty flat. We got ourselves sorted and headed to the local shop to pay our dues and get a ticket to display in the window. The harbour is north facing and at this time of year was not going to get any sun so we opted for hook up to keep the batteries going. We stocked up on a few bits and bobs while we were at the shop, there are few supermarkets in the more extreme reaches of the highlands and anyway it’s good to support community shops. 

Looking towards the harbour from Kinlochbervie hotel

Once everything was sorted Paul decided he fancied a spot of fishing off the harbour so I settled in for a relaxing read while he caught very little.

We spent one day cycling around the local area. There are some very lovely beaches well worth visiting. We cycled to Oldshoremore first, said to be one of Scotland’s most beautiful beaches, it’s definitely lovely and it looks as though there is some motorhome parking offered by a farmer nearby.

Then we moved onwards to pick up the track that leads to Sandwood Bay. This remote bay cannot be reached by road, the population of crofters who used to live in the area were evicted by the clearances. Strathchailleach bothy is near the bay. It was occupied by a hermit until 1994.but is now a rest stop for intrepid multi day trekkers who are walking the Cape Wrath Trail.

Cycling to Sandwood Bay

Before we reached the bay we found a sign asking cyclists to leave their bikes and walk the rest of the way to avoid damage to the machair environment. We locked up the bikes and continued down to the bay over the grassy land and through the maze of extensive sandy dunes. This was another lovely beach, and although we’d seen no one on the way we were surprised to see a couple of people taking photos on the beach.

Bikes locked up above the beach

We returned to Kinlochbervie by retracing our steps and decided to spend another night at the harbour before moving on the following morning. Paul wanted to try his luck with fishing again but only managed a couple of small pollack, too small to keep.

Cycling back to Kinlochbervie in the late winter afternoon

 

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