At the far edge of Ardnamurchan’s last great wilderness awaits the dreamlike Sanna Beach. To reach it, you first have to cross a crater.
Feet in the sand of Sanna Beach, the turquoise water in the bay rolling in in waves, the wind cooling your forehead. Inland, a rocky ridge shields the beach; the view out to sea, however, is unobstructed, broken only in the distance by the islands of Muck and Rùm. It could well be paradise, this Sanna Beach right at the western tip of the Ardnamurchan peninsula.
Yet this paradise sits at the edge of a former hell. Because what rises here as a small mountain range at the back of Sanna Bay is, in truth, the rim of an ancient crater – a so-called caldera. Around 58 million years ago, the ground here gave way and sank down into a vast magma chamber.
Back in the present, though, Sanna Bay shows its beautiful side: sand and dunes that invite a short walk even in fairly middling weather.
Solitude isn’t always guaranteed here. Even though only around 2,000 residents are spread across the whole vast Ardnamurchan peninsula, they all seem to agree that this beach is a destination well worth the trip. And rightly so.
But if even the small handful of walkers here feels like too many, just a little further north along the bay you’ll barely see another soul. The terrain, though, does get a bit more demanding, as rocks overgrown with seaweed and grassy headlands repeatedly interrupt the sandy shoreline.
In return, though, the small coves between the rocks reward you with a treasure trove of tiny snail shells and seashells.
The beach stretching between the settlements of Portuairk in the south and Sanna in the north is partly bordered by the increasingly rare machair, a type of grassland that blooms wonderfully in summer and is now strictly protected. In summer, it flowers here in lush abundance.
Sanna Beach is certainly one of the most beautiful beaches in the Highlands, and the drive in through the caldera only makes it more fascinating still.
Did you know: Sanna, Ardnamurchan and the Clearances
Although today’s residents of both settlements presumably actively seek out the closeness to the beach, there were also people who were once forcibly relocated here – in the most brutal fashion imaginable. This happened during the notorious Highland Clearances. The tenants working the land near Swordle, in the north of Ardnamurchan, were forced by their landlord to build new houses to a modern standard. At great expense and effort, the farmers managed to do so.
Yet they got nothing out of it – because the landlord subsequently threw out all 16 families. They weren’t even allowed to take the newly acquired windows and doors from their houses with them. The evicted families were given small plots of land at Sanna Bay. Here, they had to start over from scratch, building new houses and turning the acidic peat soil into farmland.
Similar fates befell many other Ardnamurchan residents too, such as those who had settled around Ben Hiant to the south. The Gaelic poet Dr John MacLachlan once wrote of it:
Dìreadh a mach ri Beinn-Shianta,
Gur cianail tha mo smuaintean.
A’ faicinn na beinne ‘n a fàsach,
‘S i gun àiteach air a’ h-uachdar
As I climb up Ben Hiant,
my thoughts grow dark,
seeing the mountain as wilderness,
with no village upon its face.
(a very free translation!)
Around 2,000 people live in Ardnamurchan today, and roughly 19 percent of them still speak Gaelic – a notably high figure, even for the Highlands and Islands.
Personal note: never good weather
I’m starting to take this rather personally now: however many times I’ve been to Ardnamurchan, I’ve always had bad luck with the weather – which is fairly plain to see from the photos. And yet I find the landscape so fascinating that I’ll definitely be going back.
Getting there:
By sat nav: “PH36 4LW” will bring you to Sanna.
Without sat nav: whether coming from the ferry or from Salen, the route first leads to Kilchoan. From there, follow the signs for Portuairk and Sanna. Careful: don’t miss the turn-off for Ach na h-àth and Sanna. Do NOT continue on towards Port Uairc (Portuairk) from there. The road runs through the caldera. It ends at a car park, where you’ll also find an old red telephone box and a postbox. Park here.
