A car-free journey within the Scottish Highlands: I’d have missed a lot if I’d pushed | Scotland holidays

Tright here’s a celebration ambiance around the lighthouse on Chanonry Level close to Inverness, the UK’s finest place to see dolphins from land. It’s an hour after low tide and there are pipers, picnics and youngsters operating barefoot over lengthy, night sands. Already in late spring, the solar barely appears to set within the Highlands. The kelp-strewn pebbles are glowing as I stroll from the bus cease close to Fortrose cathedral (bus 26/26A from Inverness) alongside one facet of the promontory. The dolphins don’t present up. However, one way or the other, it’s high-quality – the primary of many causes to return. It’s nonetheless mild as I stroll again alongside the seaside for a 9pm bus, previous wild lupins and views of Fort George and pink clouds over the Moray Firth. I’m in Inverness firstly of every week exploring Scotland’s wild north coast by practice and bus.

The North Coast 500 is a sufferer of its personal success. Devised in 2015, within the fashion of America’s Route 66, this 516-mile round street journey spherical northern Scotland attracts 1000’s of drivers and motor homers yearly to slim roads with bottleneck passing locations. Locals complain that the route’s recognition has pushed up home costs and discuss by way of pre- and post-NC500. A number of cyclists cowl all or a part of the route by bike. I’m exploring a few of it by public transport and on foot. It takes a little bit of planning. I’m used to the gentle frustration of lacking an hourly bus; lacking a weekly one is one other matter. However first, there’s an epic railway journey to take pleasure in.

The Far North Line winds previous coast and woodland, moor and mountain on its four-hour journey from Inverness as much as Thurso (advance tickets £16 every means, scotrail.co.uk). One finish of Cromarty Firth, one in every of three large estuaries, is all reedbeds, waterbirds and hares within the lengthy grass. The far finish is studded with disused oil rigs, towed right here once they’re not wanted within the North Sea. Throughout the huge blue of Dornoch Firth, I can simply make out Skibo Fort, an enormous baronial mansion that was the Scottish residence of metal tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Later, there’s a half-timbered station home and a glimpse of turrets above the timber as we go Dunrobin Fort. The railway runs beside the ocean between Brora and Helmsdale, previous miles of abandoned sand and rocks bristling with cormorants.

In the course of blanket-bogged Move Nation, we cease at Forsinard, the place the outdated station home is an RSPB customer centre and a surfaced path leads by bird-rich lochans. Some youngsters on the trail wave cheerfully on the practice and a deer runs previous the window. Broch, broch, hut circle, cairn insists the map in gothic lettering. I can often see solely the extra just lately ruined round sheepfolds, however it’s clear it is a large and historical panorama. There are intricately carved Pictish stones and Viking defend bosses on the North Coast customer centre in Thurso.

After half an hour’s onward journey, by cotton-grassed moorland dotted with glittering lochs, I arrive on bus 803 in Melvich. I stroll by dunes to the seaside, the place oystercatchers are flying over peat-tinged waves. In neighbouring Portskerra, there are purple orchids, columbines and carpets of squill with starry sky-blue flowers beside a clifftop path and the clear, sheltered waters of the harbour are good for a bracing high-tide dip. Warming up within the Shoreline Espresso Store, I inform a fellow swimmer I’m apprehensive about lacking the twice-daily weekday bus alongside the coast tomorrow and she or he laughs and says somebody would most likely give me a raise.

Very early subsequent morning, I do catch bus 274 to Bettyhill, the place the Strathnaver Museum reopened in April 2023 after a giant refurbishment. In an outdated church close to the white sand seashores of Farr Bay, the museum homes every kind of curios from a bronze age beaker to a dog-skin buoy. There’s loads of data about Clan Mackay and the Highland clearances that also really feel freshly tragic to some folks residing domestically. “I hate sheep,” says one girl, whose grandfather was pressured to maneuver. Later, rambling alongside quiet lanes close to Tongue, I go a roadside memorial to the native Gaelic poet Ewen Robertson. He wrote poignantly concerning the clearances, which evicted crofting communities from the land that they had farmed. A few of Robertson’s best-known strains curse the sheep and the perfidious duke for making Sutherland a desert.

From Tongue, it’s a four-mile stroll to Kinloch Lodge, the place a gaggle of us are assembly for a hike, by blue milkwort flowers and fragrant lavatory myrtle, to distant Loch an Dithreibh. It’s organised by the crew from Feragaia, a particular alcohol-free Scottish spirit, distilled in Fife from a bunch of crops like west coast sugar kelp, lemon verbena, and blackcurrant leaves from a farm in Perthshire. The hike is led by a ranger from Wildland, a long-term conservation venture that featured in David Attenborough’s Wild Isles. Their work consists of re-establishing woods and restoring wetlands.

Kinloch Lodge, the place we’re staying, is one in every of Wildland’s portfolio of posh properties. Exterior, the numerous peaks of Ben Loyal are topped with cloud or lit by a coppery sundown. Different locations to remain domestically embody the Tongue lodge, a Victorian lodge with wooden panels, open fires and mountain views, just lately revamped by the Highland Coast Resorts group (doubles from £158 B&B). There’s a hostel too, proper on the coast close to the huge Kyle of Tongue (doubles from £70, room-only).

Subsequent day, I comply with a signed path over the rust-red Rhian Burn, by streamside bluebells and vibrant yellow broom flowers, as much as Fort Varrich. The metal viewing platform, added by Wildland in 2017, seems out over mountains and sea loch. Again down within the village, there are gnarled beech timber, duck eggs on the market, a lone fisher on the crumbling pier, and Tongue Home, one other former seat of Clan Mackay. The Norse Bakehouse serves up home-cooked Italian meals, and the blue-and-gold view from the backyard is one in every of many postcard-ready seascapes.

I’m leaving tomorrow by way of Inverness, the place the Caledonian Sleeper, taken over final 12 months by the Scottish authorities, units off six nights every week (seats from £55 Inverness to Crewe and London Euston). Strolling to the bus cease in Tongue subsequent morning, previous heather-sunk rocks with unusual markings, the sunshine is vibrant sufficient to maintain the midges at bay. There are such a lot of issues I may need missed if I drove alongside this street as a substitute of strolling: a marbled white butterfly on the coconut-smelling gorse, wooden sorrel below lime-green birches, the sound of mountain streams, and the cuckoo calling hoarsely over the valley.

This journey was supported by Feragaia and Go to Scotland