Distance: 4/5 days: 62mls/102km: Oykel Bridge to Kylesku: 25mls/42km: Kylescu to Rhiconich: 18mls/30km; Rhiconich to Sandwood Bay: 12mls/20km: Sandwood Bay to Cape Wrath: 7mls/12km

Map: OS Sheets 15, 9

Start: Oykel Bridge

Finish: Cape Wrath

Transport for start and finish: There are bus and postbus services from Bonar Bridge to Ledmore and Lochinver, passing Oykel Bridge Traveline: 0870 6082608. Cape Wrath lighthouse is served by a minibus (several times a day between May and September, 01971 511287) that connects with a ferry ( 01971 511376) across the Kyle of Durness to the main road at Keodale, just over 2 miles from Durness. Durness is served by buses to Ullapool and Inverness.

Traveline, 0870 6082608

Suggested Accommodation: Oykel Bridge Hotel, Rosehall ( 01549 441218), there is a hotel and a hostel (01971 502003) at Kylesku and a hotel at Rhiconich. There is a hotel and B&B accommodation at Kinlochbervie but no accommodation north of here.

Tourist Information: Durness TIC (01971 511259)

Route Summary: Follow the well maintained track on the north bank of the River Oykel all the way to Loch Ailsh. Beyond Benmore Lodge the character of the landscape changes and as the track leaves the forest to follow the River Oykel north to Conival and Ben More Assynt we must leave it behind. A rough footpath continues in a north-east direction beside the Allt Sail an Ruathair and continues over the south-east slopes of Meall an Aonaich to Loch Carn nan Conbhairean.. From the loch the path continues north, skirting the east slopes of ben More Assynt. At Loch Bealach a’ Mhadaidh the path stops, but another is picked up about a mile further on at GR304251. At GR273277 another path runs off to the right towards the Eas Coul-Aulin waterfall. Continue on the original path and follow it all the way to Loch na Gainmhich. You can either follow the road from here to Kylesku or alternatively descend to the shores of Loch Glencoul and follow them to the road just before Unapool. Cross the Kylesku Bridge  and follow the road to the junction with the minor road that that leads to the old ferry landing at Kylestrome. Just before a gate go left through the trees to another road but disregard this one and continue in an ENE direction on a path that crosses rough ground for 7 miles to the A838 at Loch More. Turn left on to the road and follow it for about a mile to Achfary. From here follow the track NW through the forest and into Strath Stack. Continue to a path junction and turn right, below Ben Stack, to descend to the road again. Turn right on to the road then cross the bridge over ther river at GR269437. Follow the path past Lochstack Lodge as far as the Alltan Riabhach. From here cross rough ground to the head of Loch a’ Garbh-bhaid Mor. A very sketchy and wet path runs NW to Rhiconish following the east shores of the lochs and rivers.

From Rhiconich follow the quiet B801 for about 4 miles to Kinlochbervie, then another 2.5 miles to Blairmore. From here follow the track and very obvious path to Sandwood Bay. From the north end of Sandwood Bay follow the coastline north (few paths) to Cape Wrath.

From the rather benign and low-lying country of Glen Oykel the scenery changes dramatically beyond Loch Ailsh as we enter the Benmore Forest and skirt the wild and imposing eastern slopes of Ben More Assynt.

 

Geologically this whole area is predominantly made up of gneiss (which is not so g-nice when wet) on top of which sandstone mountains have been weathered by frost and wind to create some of the magificent smaller mountain peaks that dominate the landscape further west – Stac Pollaidh, Ben More Coigach, Cul Mor, Cul Beag, Suilven and Quinag.

While Ben More Assynt and its close neighbour Conival perhaps lack the mountain architecture of some of these smaller hills the two Munros rise from a desolate and water-scarred landscape. Their shy and retiring nature is protected by the rough, naked miles of their approach. There is a prehistoric rawness in their appeal, but their geology is also more complex. The gneiss bedrock rises to a greater height than on the western hills and on Ben More Assynt it almost reaches the summit. Add the crystalline Moine schists that are also found here, the white quartzite blocks and the limestone glen below and you begin to understand why one guidebook described the area as an “internationally acclaimed geological showpiece.”

 

This rather long section could be broken, if necessary, by following the infant River Oykel to its headwaters in the great corrie below Ben More Assynt and Conival, and climbing through the high bealach south of Conival where a rough path will take you down to Gleann Dubh and the hotel at Inchnadamph. From there a footpath over the brow of Glas Bheinn leads to Loch na Gainmhich from where you’ll have to follow the road north to Kylesku.

 

The route from Benmore Lodge is a tough and remote walk and is really only for those willing to embrace all aspects of a wilderness experience – pathless stretches, river crossings, rough terrain and solitude. For those cynics who boldly proclaim we don’t have such a thing in Scotland as wilderness let them wander past the pock-marked slopes and corries of Beinn Uidhe and Glas Bheinn to where the waters of the Eas Coul-Aulin, the highest waterfall in the UK, tumble down the Leitir Dhubh to Loch Beag of Loch Glencoul. They might see the Scotland in a new, raw and rugged light!.

 

Approaching Kylesku from Loch na Gainmhich, the first glimpse of Quinag can be intimidating. On dour days of scudding cloud she can look distinctly menacing, the main backbone of the mountain shy and retiring, hidden away by the perspective of the land behind steep, barrel shaped buttresses of terraced rock. In the fiery light of a winter sunset she can look fierce and distinctly threatening.

 

But given a long summer’s day, this old girl of the far north-west shows her kindly side and all the threats melt away. With a high-level start, obvious paths and wide ranging views the ridge-walks to her three Corbett summits makes one of the best high-level excursions in the north.

 

Shaped like an elongated Euro sign, with those steep buttresses forming the ends of the two upper prongs, the mountain’s saving grace, as far as walkers are concerned, is that lower prong, which, unlike the other two, fades out into a long and gentle ridge and offers easy access to the hill’s backbone.

 

Unusually for a Corbett, Quinag boasts three summits – Sail Gorm, 776m, the highest point on the top prong of the Euro; Sail Gharbh, 808m on the middle prong and Spidean Coinich, 764M on the southern one. Indeed, it’s this southern top that is supposed to resemble the spout of a bucket, giving the hill the name Cuinneag – Gaelic for a narrow-mouthed water stoup. For years we knew the hill as Queenaig, giving it a royal and female association. Old habits die hard and I still think of the hill as a “her”.  Pronounce it “coon-yak.”

 

Beyond Kylesku and its modern bridge we cross a spine of land into the Reay Forest, an area I always think of as the land of the great northern diver. The bird’s melancholy call seems to embody the spirit of these northern parts. The great highland writer Seton Gordon once described the wild and compelling cry as one that might come from “one of the uruisgean or gruagachan which in tradition and folk-lore people those sea-girt isles.” It’s an eerie sound in the half-light of a late summer evening, especially if you’re camped by some remote hill-loch..

 

If you get a chance the small peak of Ben Stack is well worth an ascent, if only for the view of these northern parts. At 721 metres it falls short of Corbett height but impresses as a rocky, conical and isolated peak that rises from the shores of Loch Stack in two steep bands of cliff-line. Its blunt, western nose is steep too, but beyond its roof-like summit ridge its south-eastern slopes fall away in a gentle and rounded ridge, the Leathan na Stioma. Footpaths curve their way round the west and south of the hill and the A838 hugs the shoreline of Loch Stack below its western cliffs offering alternative circular routes.

 

The trail continues below the great cliff-bands of Arkle and out to the road at Rhiconich from where 7 miles of tarmac-bashing takes us past Kinlochbervie (the Fisherman’s Mission is a great place for a fry-up) and past straggling croftships to Blairmore and the track to magical Sandwood Bay.

 

Here lies one of Scotland’s finest beaches and the feeling of remoteness is powerful. At the south-west end of the bar a 300ft high sea stack, Am Buachaille, rises from its sandstone plinth. Behind the beach and sequestered from it by the sand dunes lies a freshwater loch, Sandwood Loch and sitting on the grassy hillside above it, the ruins of Sandwood Cottage. The area is owned by the John Muir Trust.

 

On the face of it Sandwood Bay is little different from countless other bays which dot the storm-lashed seaboard of Scotland, but there is a spirit abroad here, a spirit of place which is curiously atmospheric and compelling. Some claim it is the principal hauling-up place in Scotland for mermaids. A black bearded sailor supposedly haunt the shores. Seton Gordon tells of walking here in the twenties and of how astonished he was at the number of shipwrecks that littered the shore. He believed these were old vessels, lost on this coast before the building of the Cape Wrath lighthouse. He also posed the question of whether or not there could be Viking long-boats buried in the sands: indeed, it was the Vikings who named this place Sand-Vatn or Sand Water.

 

It was also the Viking who named Cape Wrath, as a “turning place”, before sailing down the western seaboard of Scotland. Rough footpaths link Sandwood Bay with Cape Wrath where the lighthouse was designed in 1828 by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s a rather nice link because RLS was a great traveller and adventurer who once said: “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” I suspect he would have like the Cape Wrath Long Distance Trail. Let his words go with you as you head off to catch the post-bus to the Kyle of Durness and the long journey south – “Give to me the life I love/let the lave go by me/Give the jolly heaven above/And the byway nigh me…

TOTAL: 14-16 days; 194mls/323km