Chris picks his best...
Rooms
with sea views | Food
and drink spots | Beaches
There’s an empty crate in the back of the Mystery Machine. It contained my
entire stock of superlatives, but after a six-day drive from Thurso to
Southport, it’s exhausted.
I knew this leg of the quest for Britain’s best beaches would be special, but
I was entirely unprepared for the gasp-inducing, gut-wrenching, eye-watering
beauty of Scotland’s west coast, an exquisitely rugged stretch of shoreline
where the dazzling sands make the beaches of the Caribbean look like
motorway gravel traps.
Starting out in cloud-bound Thurso, I point the Mystery Machine at Strathy
Point. Here, the austere Protestantism of Scotland’s northernmost shores
ends and, as you wind westwards, the coast displays a Catholic flamboyance
that increases in intensity until it reaches certifiable geological
insanity.
The madness begins at Farr Bay — but perfect as this sheltered curve of
demerara gorgeousness is, there’s something perfecter over the hill, where a
single crepuscular ray lights up the empty white sands of Torrisdale Bay.
Heading west, it’s like a lucky dip where every prize is an ever more precious
jewel, past Coldbackie to Traigh allt Chailg considered by many to be the
most perfect beach in Scotland, to Sango Sands and Balnakeil, recommended by
reader Tony Rankin. Each is a variation on a common theme — outrageous
natural, deserted beauty — and each is a time bandit, capable of stealing
hours and days, until you stumble, wasted with Caledonian aesthetic
overload, into an Ullapool estate agency.
Before you know it, you’re running a B&B at the edge of nowhere,
smoking salmon and learning the bagpipes. Readers Becky Stickland, Alan Kemp
and Roger Hughes, all formerly of sound mind and employment, and now
respectively a hotelier, a salmon-smoker and a bagpipe technician, can
attest to the risks of overexposure.
It gets worse. Southwest of Cape Wrath, and reached only after an hour-long
hike across peat bogs, is Sandwood Bay recommended by reader Sandy Watson
and described by the mountaineer Hamish McInnes as “the most beautiful beach
in the northern hemisphere”.
It seems an ideal spot for a night of utter loneliness — how often can you be
sure that you’re four miles from the nearest humans? — but 12 Germans, a
quartet of Frenchmen, and a rather irritated ex-paratrooper called Dave have
all thought the same thing. I’ve brought Alan Kemp’s smoked salmon and a
bottle of Laphroaig. Dave has brought a packet of Bourbon biscuits and some
war stories. Neither of us realised at the time that the most beautiful
beach on earth was a five-minute stroll from the car park.
Next day, I push south, weaving along silent lanes where wild lupins rise in
ghostly rows like the ragged remnants of a Jacobite army, dog rose splatters
the hedgerows and woodbine weighs down the air with its sticky scent. This
is campervan land, roamed by the likes of Malcolm Smith, who sold his house
in Bristol to buy a four-wheeled retirement home, and Barry Davies, from
South Wales, whose wife, Sarah, sells heather-honey fudge from their
converted army ambulance.
The Mystery Machine, a state-of- the-art Volkswagen California, always
attracts attention, but these nomads are a different breed. In north London,
men asked if the van had a loo (no). In Wester Ross, they ask if they can
get one with a winch (probably).
At Tarbert, where the purple hills are flayed to their granite bones by seas
so clear you can see the bottom at 40ft, I run out of superlatives. So I
can’t really do justice to the B869, aka the Lochinver scenic route, where
I watch sea otters diving for oysters, red deer eating seaweed and a baby seal
crawling ashore in the twilight at Achmelvich — thanks to reader Rory Brown
for the tip-off — to creep like a selkie towards a crofter’s cottage. Nor
can I properly describe the jade-tinted waters and dazzling white sands at
Mellon Udrigle — as recommended by Fiona Lewis — or the secret camp site on
the Blytonesque paradise of Firemore Sands, near the submarine base on Loch
Ewe.
I wish I could describe the knee-trembling views of Skye and Harris from the
empty beach at Redpoint, the utter solitude of Ardnamurchan’s Sanna Bay and
how blue the shallows were at Camas Mor, a four-mile hike north of the inn
at Melvaig. If I had the words, I’d be raving about the necklace of
subtropical beaches between Morar and Arisaig — but, like I said, I’m clean
out of superlatives, so book a flight to Inverness (from £48 return, with
EasyJet; www.easyjet.com), rent a car
from the airport (from £149 for a week, with Thrifty; 01494 751500, www.thrifty.co.uk)
and come and see for yourself.
As Mrs Haslam observes while we sit awestruck in the Mystery Machine, wiping
the drool from our sagging jaws as yet another staggeringly beautiful
coastal vista opens before us: “I think a fortnight on the west coast could
change your life.” If the sun shines, it could take even less — but don’t
forget the Avon Skin-So-Soft to protect against those bloody midges.
Rumour had it that there was a beach break worth paddling out for at
Machrihanish. We pursued the bait, but after a 90-mile drive down the Mull
of Kintyre, all we found were flat sands and an even flatter sea. It was
time to leave Scotland.
My next stop is Silloth, on the Solway Firth — something of a disappointment.
From there, I follow a sorrowful 15-mile stretch of sour brown sand, washed
by a gravy-coloured sea, as far as Maryport, home of the eponymous blues
festival, which runs for three days from this Friday.
I’m heading to pretty St Bees at the behest of reader Phil Haslehurst, who
promises a spectacular Solway sunset, but the weather fails to oblige. On to
Morecambe, where pink-shirted salesmen in shades are drinking champagne on
the terrace of the Midland hotel, a superbly revamped art-deco outpost,
bringing a ray of hope to the impoverished resort.
Blackpool seems to have let herself go since my last visit.
Too many chips and alcopops, I reckon. I join a queue at the stage door of the
Grand Theatre as the curtain comes down on Joseph and ask a girl with
black-and-white teeth what we’re waiting for. “Craig,” she replies. I must
look stupid. “Craig,” she repeats. “Him off that thing on the telly with
that other fella on it.” Oh. That Craig.
I end the week in Southport with 1,209 miles on the clock. The Victorian
resort, once home to Napoleon III, is undergoing a renaissance, say
developers, with the building of a “leisure complex” and a seafront hotel.
“Come back in five years,” advises pensioner Walt, hugging a Thermos of
whisky-laced tea in a shelter on the pier, “and I’ll make you a cuppa.” It
would be a pleasure.
For more information on the beaches of west Scotland, go to www.visitscotland.com;
for the best of England’s coast, visit www.enjoyengland.com/seaside
NW Scotland can be wonderful if you have good weather. However, the norm is drizzle and midges, and the scenery is often obscured by mist. That's why it's so quiet up there!
Ben Grumpie, Bristol,